


Ethical Sadism: Level 1

by Desiderii



Series: Ethical Sadism [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Frame Narrative, M/M, Morgana gets what Morgana wants, Pathfinder - Freeform, Scibbland Zum, Tabletop Gaming
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2014-01-26
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:56:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 23,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desiderii/pseuds/Desiderii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Merlin is roped into playing Pathfinder with Morgana as gamemaster. Not only does he get to (have to?) learn a new game, but he also has to spend the one-a-week gaming sessions with Arthur and, well, it's Arthur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Session 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ureshiiichigo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ureshiiichigo/gifts).



> Written for [ureshiiichigo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ureshiiichigo). Beta'd by the lovely and talented [percygranger. ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Percygranger/)
> 
> This project is designed as a serial, which is an experimental format for me. Updates will arrive at least once a month. I set the whole thing as 'Mature' because I'm not sure how fast any of the relationships are going to develop, as well as because of the mature topics that I'll cover as things spin out. 
> 
> The level of gaming knowledge required going in is zero, because Merlin's a newbie and he needs to be eased into things. 
> 
> Enjoy!

When Merlin agreed that Morgana could introduce him to tabletop roleplay, he thought it was a hypothetical offer similar to each of Will’s suggestions that he come to one of these mysterious Shadowrun games that never quite seemed to materialize. He really didn’t expect her to pull an entire gaming group out of her pocket without batting an eyelash. As soon as she started listing off evenings ‘the rest’ were free, Merlin held up his hands in protest. 

She halted, eyebrow raised. 

Hesitating over his words, Merlin asked, “You already have a group?” 

“Look, Arthur’s been dying to play rather than GM, Gwen has been wanting to introduce Lance to the joy that is dice-rolling and sword-swinging, and Gwaine,” Morgana waved her hand vaguely in the air, “prefers more complicated character arcs than any of Leon’s games ever give him. You know the boys. If any of Arthur’s set could afford proper armies, they’d be playing with a hell of a lot more minis than the ones they use for their dungeon crawls. I want someone else new so Lance won’t be the only virgin. It’s bad enough that Arthur is going to have to adjust to being on the other side of the screen. Lance’ll need someone to commiserate with while I’m trying to keep my stupid brother from metagaming his way through the whole campaign.” 

Merlin blinked at her, squinted, and looked around for help, as if one of the other students that strode by on their way to classes might be able to understand (and maybe translate?) any of what she was saying. He was cut off from the herd, though, a lone wildebeest. Morgana had chosen her ambush wisely. 

Turning back, he squinted at her again. All he’d gotten out of her explanation was, “Arthur will be there and Lance is a virgin?”

“Merlin.” Morgana patted him on the cheek. “If you were only agreeing to be polite, you don’t have to join. I can run a game with four. I just thought I’d offer since you’ve always struck me as someone who would enjoy a good roleplay.”

“What kind of roleplay am I agreeing to if we’re talking about virgins?”

“The fun kind,” Morgana said. Narrowing her eyes, she gave him a shrewd once-over, taking in his starving-grad dishabille and the faint blush he could feel heating his ears as she raked and judged him with a look. “To answer your question, yes, Arthur is going to be there.” 

Merlin offered her a tight smile. At least Morgana was psychic, which meant he didn’t actually have to say anything that would require him to drown himself in the nearest drinking fountain. “It’s not that I’m not curious, and it’s not entirely about Arthur,” he said, truthfully enough. “It’s also that I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“It’ll be scary and new and wildly embarrassing for Lance, too, which is why I want him to have a fellow newbie in the party. Oh! _Plus_ ,” Morgana’s said, acting like the thought was just now occurring to her and she hadn’t planned his takedown in eighteen different ways, “Arthur knows the player’s guide inside and out. He’ll sit right next to you and hold your hand through the whole process.” 

Merlin pulled a face. “That’s cruel and unusual and you know it.” 

“It’s only sensible. Gwaine doesn’t give a shit about mechanics, Gwen will be helping Lance, and I’ll actively be trying to kill you.”

“So business as usual then,” Merlin said dryly. 

Morgana flashed him a smile and continued without comment, “I’m rolling everyone’s characters for you, so all you have to do is show up. I absolutely promise it will be fun.”

“For who?”

“For me, obviously.” At least Morgana was honest. “However, I’m willing to bet you’ll enjoy yourself too, Arthur notwithstanding.”

Taking a deep breath, Merlin nodded. “I’ll come.” 

“You won’t regret it.” 

“Pretty sure I will,” Merlin said under his breath, directing his words toward his trainers.

Morgana either had super hearing or she was reading his mind. “Pretty sure you’re late for something.” She threw a glance over her shoulder towards the clock tower all casual-like. “Didn’t you have a lab or teaching or something?” 

The clock tower tolled the half and Merlin swore. “Lab, and my team is going to hate me. Again. They don’t know you, so when I blame you they never understand.” 

“You best get going.” Morgana folded her arms and regarded him, for all the world like she was content to stand in the middle of the pavement as uni students shot them grouchy looks and swerved around them. “If you’d like company, I’d love to put the fear of me into any number of grad students.” 

“Were you literally on campus just to bother me into your game?” Merlin asked, beckoning her to follow. Hefting his backpack higher onto his shoulder, he eyed her as she fell into step on their way to the robotics department. 

“Of course not. I’m visiting research on behalf of the company. Professor Gaius simply neglected to mention.” 

Merlin had no doubt. He sighed. “You wouldn’t happen to be interested in applying his infrared projections fields like everyone else, would you?”

“Don’t be silly. If I wanted to play with that, I’d buy a Kinect.” She waved the question away. Linking her arm with his, she clicked her way between two of the ivy-eaten stone buildings at a pace that made him stumble trying to keep up. “Cheer up, I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you’re imagining. You’ll get to spend time with everyone who never gets to see you anymore and you’ll learn a life skill that I’m shocked and appalled you’ve managed to get this far without.”

“If you say so,” Merlin said, grudgingly amused. 

“You’ll be fine. If you’re not, I’ll break my NDA and tell you all about what I’m visiting Gaius for.”

“I’m holding you to that.” 

“Deal,” Morgana said, bringing them to a halt at the steps of their destination. “Be prompt. Bring snacks. I’ll take care of the rest.” 

**

Merlin hesitated outside of the door to Morgana’s flat with one hand raised to knock. He felt like every pathetic movie cliche packaged into one Merlin-shaped bundle of nervous energy. He could hear Arthur’s voice through the door telling some sort of muted joke followed by laughter. Turning around was still an option as long as nobody knew he was standing outside the door. He could text Morgana from the bus and claim something came up at last minute.

A voice from behind dashed his fancies. “Merlin?”

Leaning forward, he let his forehead knock against the door. The hollow sound caused a shift in the conversation on the other side and footsteps headed his way. Good enough. “Gwen.”

“Are you being ridiculous?” she asked, looping her arm in his. She snuggled up against his side. Her hair was freshly damp as she looked up at him, her cheeks dark and flushed from her bike ride over. The faint smell of soap and motor oil clung to her clothes. “Because from here it rather looks like you’re being ridiculous.” 

“Morgana set this whole thing up to torture me, didn’t she?” 

“Hate to break it to you, but our ultimate destines do not revolve around you,” Gwen said. Her words carried the bare minimum of required sympathy. “She set this up to torture all of us, Arthur included. Don’t think you’re special.” 

With a snort, Merlin threw her tiny smile. “But I _am_ a special snowflake,” he teased her, acknowledging her point as he straightened from the door. “Everything’s all about me. Pet me and feed my ego.” 

Gwen rolled her eyes. “All about you and Arthur, more rather. I, for one, am looking forward to whatever Morgana’s got planned. Last campaign she agreed to run, my cleric ended up abandoning her goddess when I decided I wanted to multiclass, and the fallout from that drove the plot for months.”

“Is that good?” Merlin asked. 

“Well, ‘give a GM a plothook’.”

The door clicked open just as Merlin asked, “Is that a quote I’m supposed to know?”

Morgana answered the door looking positively rumpled with her feet bare, jeans loose on her hips, and her t-shirt some ancient castoff of Arthur’s. She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers. “Bag. Helmet. I locked Aithusa in the bedroom so we don’t have to worry. Come in.” 

Gwen relinquished her motorcycle helmet and slipped past Morgana into the flat, making a beeline for the settee. All Merlin could see over the back was one arm, but Gwen leapt the cushions and the sound of Lance’s surprised yelp set the occupants of the other settee to laughing. Merlin entered with a little bit more trepidation, ignoring the expression on Morgana’s face that said she was laughing at both him and the way his eyes lingered on Arthur longer than strictly necessary. 

The flat itself was worthy of as long a look, so Merlin took his time in getting his bearings. Morgana rarely hosted, and Merlin could only guess that it was because she didn’t want the hoi polloi mussing her pristine environs. The place had vaulted ceilings, tiny chandeliers, and was decorated like something straight out of a magazine, all modern lines and sharp edges. The way Gwaine sprawled across the arms of one of her _en vogue_ loveseats wearing ripped denim was almost sacrilege, and Arthur was the only splotch of color with his red button-down that clung to his shoulders and gaped at the neck. 

Arthur’s collarbones, however, could only hold Merlin’s attention for so long when the table in the center of the seating was dressed with a large stuffed dragon, a stack of what looked like books a foot high, and - in addition to a pile of snacks that looked like they’d give him a sugar high and then a hard crash - a plate of hors d’oeuvres that Gwen was already picking over with relish. 

So much for his offerings. Merlin toed off his shoes and finally handed his Tesco bag over to the waiting Morgana with a half-smile. “Crisps. I didn’t know what else to bring.” 

“Crisps are perfect,” Morgana told him, taking him by the elbow and steering him into her sitting room. “Gwaine brought those little bits of ridiculous from work. How much did you pay for those?”

“A wink and a smile,” Gwaine replied, his grin lighting his face as he waved hello. “Catering was cancelled at the last minute and we had enough for eight hundred. I’m lucky to have escaped or I’d still be there trying to figure out what to do with fifty trays of cheese nests.”

“Your life is so hard,” Morgana told him. Directing her attention to the rest of her guests, she said, “Get Merlin settled. I’ll go get drinks and your character sheets and we’ll get this party started. Any requests?” She pointed Merlin to one of the chairs next to Arthur as the others called out their beverage choices. 

Merlin sat and slung his backpack onto the floor by his feet. He and Arthur had a pair of squashy armchairs on one side, Gwaine had an asymmetric loveseat on the other, and Lance and Gwen had claimed the sette. Morgana’s throne was set up with its own little table, a cup full of multicolored pens and a stack of looseleaf paper. 

As soon as he sat back, Gwen threw a cheese nest at him. He caught it before it could hit the upholstery. 

Morgana’s chairs were far more comfortable than they looked, their sharp angles packed with squashy fluff. Nibbling on his cheese nest, Merlin tucked his feet up beneath him and slid a sideways look at Arthur. The others were sharing their days’ events, the conversation drifting easily from Gwaine’s waiterly tribulations to Lance’s new volunteers to one of the poor bastards from Gwen’s shop that had come in with an actual potato in his tailpipe. Arthur, however, remained silent.

He looked exhausted, with circles under his eyes and shoulders slumped. Leaning on the arm of his chair, he followed whoever was speaking with tiny head movements, the smile that bloomed on his face whenever someone said something amusing the only sign he was engaged with the rest of them. Not even the antics of the litter of puppies Lance was describing earned more than a chuckle. 

The next cheese nest that Gwen threw at Merlin bounced off his chest. He glowered at her for the little splotch of grease it left on his t-shirt.

‘Say something,’ she mouthed at him, giving him a stern look. 

“Hard day?” Merlin leaned from his chair to capture Arthur’s attention. 

“Had to call Lunette’s mum because she was biting. The woman just shouted at me for ten solid minutes. I no longer wonder where the girl got her temper.” Arthur said, shifting his chin on his hand only just enough to direct his words toward Merlin. He quirked an eyebrow. “Other than that, it was mostly an average day. Skinned knees. Gum stuck everywhere when I didn’t think anyone had gum. No one giving a shit about the water cycle.” 

“Ah.” 

“You?” 

“First day at the lab since Morgana came in to scare my group with tales of the real world. Gilli couldn’t stop talking about her and Cedric was extra quiet, likely for the same reasons. Most productive day of welding I think I’ve ever had, though, so there’s that,” Merlin told him. “Are you going to be awake for the game?” 

“Oh, likely. Morgana promised to keep me on my toes.” 

“That sounds ominous.” 

“It’s nice just to show up without having to prepare everything for once,” Arthur said, finally stretching out to accept a beer bottle from Morgana as she came back to the sitting room with a folder under her arm and an assortment of drinks. “How come you’ve never played in one of my games, but agree to Morgana first thing?” 

Setting the can of soda that Morgana dropped in his lap on the table, Merlin offered him a one-shouldered shrug. “I’m usually busier than this?” 

“You _make_ time for gaming,” Arthur said, some of his usual pomposity returning.

“Then maybe sending shouty texts _made_ me busier than usual.”

Eyes bright though he kept a straight face, Arthur said, “You missed playing with Mordred.” 

Merlin suppressed a shudder. Morgana smacked him on the shoulder with her folder as she squeezed by to seat herself. “Mordred is the sweetest boy alive and you are unfairly prejudiced.” 

“He set me on fire.” 

“Accident.” 

“He set _Arthur_ on fire.” 

“Arthur deserved it. Character sheets!” 

When Merlin looked to Arthur for backup, Arthur just shook his head, hand over his mouth to hide his smile. 

Giving up, he turned back to Morgana, who handed him a sheet of paper covered in boxes all filled with her precise handwriting. She passed out the rest to the others and explained, “I took the liberty of giving you names, deities, and specialties. Those of you who’ve played before, I’ve given you the opposite of your favorite archetype. For you two,” she pointed at Merlin and Lance in turn, “I gave you characters I think you’ll have fun with.” 

There was a moment of silence as everyone read their sheets and snagged pencils from the cup on the table. Merlin looked his character over and had pretty much zero idea of what he was looking for. His name was ‘Kronk’, though, and he had fourteen hitpoints. That was familiar enough. Half the games in his console collections used hitpoints, though fourteen… didn’t seem like very many.

“Was making divination one of my opposition schools really necessary?” Arthur asked dryly, the first of them to finish his perusal and speak up. “Really?” 

“You might be a wizard, Arthur, but you’re not a very technical wizard, I’m afraid.”

“That is the exact opposite of the kind of wizard I would even play.” 

“Which was, obviously, the goal. I gave you lots of blasty spells. You’ll survive, I’m sure.” 

Gwaine started laughing. “You named me Chastity? I’m the _paladin_?” 

“Very important role, I might add. I designed you around setting your meaty, metal-clad self up in people’s business and staying there. You’ve played a swashbuckler how many times in a row, now? You declare dodge in your sleep, I’m sure.” 

“Only one way for you to find out,” he said, only half paying attention to his own innuendo. He perused his sheet. “Very pious, very short, very… I’m a girl?” 

“I would have thought the name ‘Chastity’ gave it away.”

“Morgana, Morgana-” Gwen bounced in her seat, waving her sheet to get Morgana’s attention, a baffled look on her face, “I’m a sorcerer?” 

“Necromancer. Your last five characters have been druid, battle cleric, Eclipse, a superhero named ‘Hydroponics’, and - against my strong recommendation I’ll remind you - a bard.” 

“I liked my bard,” Gwen objected, a slow smile spreading across her face. “He played the bass ukulele.” 

“And I liked ‘Hydroponics’, which is why I think you’ll enjoy being terrifying. Now,” she pointed at Merlin, her attention shifting swiftly enough to startle him. “I gave you a barbarian. You literally just hit stuff with your greataxe and stomp around.” 

“Why do I have a wig full of spikes?” Merlin asked. “It’s in my equipment.” 

“It’s in case someone grabs your head.”

Merlin blinked at her. “Oh, obviously.” At his side, Arthur was laughing at him, some of the tired lines easing from his forehead.

With her attention no longer on Morgana, Lance tugged at Gwen’s sleeve. “Why does my equipment list say ‘melting chocolate’?” 

Gwen frowned as she read down the list. “Goddamnit, Morgana. Paraffin? Silk rope? ‘Assorted’ manacles?” 

“All perfectly reasonable supplies for a rogue, I think,” Morgana said, batting the stuffed dragon out of the way as she reached for one of the books on the table. “You’ll help him figure out how he’s supposed to position himself?” At Lance’s wide-eyed alarm, she explained, “Rogues depend primarily on tactical positioning and the element of surprise for most of their damage. They also have the skills to steal everything not nailed down-” 

“-and then they steal the nails and repeat the process,” Arthur finished. He sprawled back in his chair with a smile on his face, the well-worn words of the truism successfully passed on.

“You made him a kinky halfling, Morgana,” Gwen said. She stole Lance’s character and frowned at the sheet. “A kinky halfling. What were you thinking?” 

“I was thinking I’d roll him a character opposite his ‘type’, which would be as fun for you as it is for me.” Morgana’s smile was vulpine sharp. “Am I wrong?”

Gwen choked on her reply.

“I’m a thief?” Lance sounded strained. 

“Technically,” Gwen said, flicking her gaze to Lance’s character sheet and away from Morgana’s insinuating smile. “Also an assassin and, if you’re inclined, a con artist and pickpocket. Class isn’t prescriptive, though. It gives you a certain skillset, but in my experience playstyle differs so wildly between players that you and I could start with the exact same character stats and powers and end up with radically different characters in terms of action and inclination.”

Lance stared at her. “Um?” 

Gwen paused and took a good look at Lance’s horrified expression and squirming discomfort. “Oh, honey, no. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, you’re just good at the whole stealing and stabbing thing.” She shared a glance with Morgana. “I swear, it’ll be fun, and if you hate it forever we’ll roll you a new character you’re more comfortable playing. Won’t we, Morgana?”

“Of course. If it comes to that, I’ll roll him a cleric and the ‘kinky halfling’ will go into the bin,” Morgana agreed. “I just think he’ll be pleasantly surprised doing something a little outside of his usual.” 

Merlin was torn between wanting to know why Morgana’s comment made _Gwen_ blush and thinking that it might be more information that he could handle. Whatever was between the two of them, however, went right over Lance’s head. He reached for a cheese nest and said, “If you say so. I’m just not sure I’d enjoy stabbing and stealing.” 

“You get used to it,” Gwen said, not entirely reassuringly. She took a short pull from the beer that Morgana had brought her and saluted the other woman across the table. “And if Morgana’s doing her job, there will be plenty of non-player characters that you will be more than willing to stab in the face.” 

Morgana cut in with a smooth, “Speaking of my job. Shall we begin?”

“Maestro, if you please…” Arthur began, waving the rest of them silent. “Will you set the stage?” 

**

The world is Scibbland Zum, and it’s a varied, vast continent with which - for the most part - none of you will be concerned since I created you all at level one and you’re pretty much scrub adventurers. Right now, however, you’re passing through a small caravanserai named Leespire, along one of the trade routes that leads through the prairies that surround the city of Timoaa. Tall grass stretches to the horizon from the edge of town, rippling like ocean waves in the wind. Here in Leespire, however, there is water, a place to bed down for the night, and a bit of respite from the sweeping prairie winds.

To the far west, there is a smudge of trees upon the horizon, to the south, a jagged range of young mountains scrapes the sky. Just on the outskirts lies namesake of the town, the Spire. 

**

“Creative naming,” quipped Arthur, interrupting Morgana mid-gesture.

Morgana halted and dropped her hands to her lap in exasperation. “Do shut up. I’m giving you the set. I thought you wanted to be a player?” 

“I’m not allowed to heckle the GM?” he asked. A smiled tugged at the corner of his lips. 

“If you keep interrupting me, we’ll never actually get to play. So help me, Arthur, I will send you to the kitchen whenever I’m setting. We’ll all have tea and you’ll be able to make yourself useful.” 

With an shrug, Arthur gave her a courtly nod and sipped his beer. Around the table the rest of them were rustling paper and wriggling deeper into their cushions, settling. The wrapper crackled as Lance broke into a package of malteasers and passed Gwen a handful. Gwaine looked especially content, the table in front of him strewn with dice. He winked at Merlin when he caught him staring at his dice.

Checking once more that Arthur didn’t look inclined to interject, Morgana got on with things. “Now. Where was I?”

**

The town’s namesake is the Spire. It rises impossibly hundreds of feet into the air and is topped by a broad, flat rock. Every traveler that passes through is treated to the well-worn legends of the distinctive geographical anomaly. Most usually start with ‘a wizard did it’, and some say he still lives atop the rock, though not a single one of the townspeople has any proof. It is variously haunted, cursed or blessed, good luck if you rub it, the home of all sorts of beasties and monstrosities, a place where women dissatisfied with their husbands go to trade them in for better models- 

( _Gwen giggled into her hand and offered Lance an innocent smile when he raised his eyebrows at her._ ) 

-and so on and so forth. Urban legends, told by oral tradition, about events that happened a second cousin’s great uncle on the other side of the family. It’s plain for anyone to see, though, that the Spire is the only feature on the otherwise featureless prairie. As a landmark for traders, it’s unparalleled, and as a starting point for our campaign, it’s a good a place as any. 

You are all in Leespire, because I say so, and I didn’t give you any time to create backstories. If this wasn’t a bit of fluff on my part, I probably would have emailed you world notes and required all sorts of information about your character up front. What we’re going to do instead, however, is a bit of creative improvisation that I’m stealing from party games. You’re all in this city on a trade route, midway between the Crossroads and the great city of Timoaa that’s ruled by a council merchant princes. I’m going to have each of you tell me who you are and what you look like and, as an added bonus, you’re going to tell me how you know one of your fellow party member that would give you a reason to be willing to work with them. Then we’ll actually put you in town, doing things, and we’ll go from there.

First up, the paladin, Chastity Keropoline.

**

“Gwaine?” Morgana said. She pointed at him with a pen and he took over from there.

**

Chastity, my friends, is five-foot nothin’ and is built like a keg-erator with a face to match. Black hair, blue eyes, and wearing enough metal to sink a frigate if someone dropped her on the deck. She is, might I stress this - thank you, Morgana - extremely religious. She has extra little sigils and shit carved all up and down her armor, which you all would know because she has probably chatted each of you up once with one of those weird rambling conversations that strange people start out of the blue. The kind where you’re not quite sure when they’ll get to the point, or if they even have a point, and you’re just waiting for them to start ranting about their deity of choice. 

So. That’s Chastity, and she knows Arthur’s character, because she pulled his bacon out of a fire at some point in time. 

**

Gwaine finished and look inordinately pleased with himself. Sounding amused, Morgana said, “Excellent. Arthur? Your wizard, tell us about him.” 

The collective attention of the room shifted from one side of the table to the other. Rolling his shoulders, Arthur picked up the thread. 

**

Derezrel is an idiot wizard - thanks Morgana - and his only claim to fame is the ability to roast practically anything with his magic. Because we all know that wizards are all about power and nothing about extensive academic studies of the arcane nature. He’s apparently some sort of traveling zapper, probably an exterminator, and I think I forgot to mention that he’s an elf.

( _Merlin laughed. Arthur threw a grin his way and started using his hands to elaborate on his chosen ridiculousness._ )

So this elf’s a traveling exterminator with a silly wizard’s hat, compensating for his monocromatic color scheme and looking like he’d top the charts of Tolkien’s top-ten ponciest. He knows Lance’s rogue, because… he removed some sort of infestation of those birds that cast color spray when you bother them. And- let’s see. He also has a familiar since he’s a wizard? Which is… a raven named Caliburn. Morgana are you laughing at my pain? You better be laughing, that way at least someone is. 

Regardless, Derezrel the exterminator elf has a raven who sits on his shoulder and quarks at everyone in ‘common’.

**

Here Arthur paused. “Common being the common language of… wherever we are. Meaning the human’s native in-game language that they spread everywhere with their conquering and their breeding like comparative rabbits to most of the rest of the fantasy races. Meaning-” 

“Meaning we’re moving on if you’re done with actual character description,” Morgana interrupted. “Because right now our poor bitty newbies do not need to be treated to one of your extended discussions on the inherent racism of all Tolkien- and Dungeons-and-Dragon’s based fantasy assumptions. I love you Arthur, but you need a soapbox and a captive audience, neither of which I’m willing to surrender tonight.” 

“I like captive audiences,” Arthur said, not at all put out. “I’ll send an email with links.” 

“Good boy. Moving on. Gwen?”

**

Nymeria is a half-elf necromancer! Which, really, means that she’s a little bit creepy and there’s something a bit off that the rest of you notice. She is, otherwise, perfectly nice and, if I do say so myself, extremely charming. For all that she doesn’t look particularly religious, she wears the goddess Pharasma’s medallion around her neck because… goddess of death, et cetera and so on. So she is a little bit of an exterminator herself. Just- of the undead. And the medallion is how you know that! And the purple eyes. Morgana gave me purple eyes, and I get to keep them because it’s not ridiculous when the GM assigns them to me. 

She knows Gwaine’s paladin, Chastity, because she once misplaced one of her fresh corpses. Nymeria found it for her. Chastity, for shame. So forgetful. 

**

“So forgetful,” Gwaine agreed. His pencil scratched across one of the sheets of scratch paper that he’d claimed from the center of the table. “Lance or Merlin next?” 

“Me,” Lance said. “I’m a kinky halfling thief and assassin, apparently.” 

Gwen nudged him with her foot. “Get into it, just a little. I promise you’ll only feel silly for a moment.” 

Sighing, Lance did as he was told. 

**

Maxim is a halfling and a ginger and he really likes camping but doesn’t like vampires, since the only thing in his stuff that’s not, uh, a pervertable or camping gear is a rope of garlic. I guess for vampires.

**

“Was that last bit a question?” Gwen asked him when she decided that was apparently all he was going to say. “Because yes, they have vampires in this game. Garlic’s very useful, though. For vampires or dinner or both.” 

Gwaine waved a hand to get Gwen’s attention. When she gave him a polite smile, he pointed at Lance. “Aren’t you going to say something about how Lance used the word ‘pervertable’ in casual conversation? That’s what I’m more curious about.” 

“Not now, Gwaine,” Morgana told him. “You’re going to kill both of them with embarrassment and then we’ll have to interrupt game to rush them to emergency. Lance, who do you know, and how?” 

“Merlin’s character, I think,” he said. “Someone stole something or other and I got it back for him.” 

Gwen made a squeaky noise and leaned over to pinch his cheek. He swatted her away and put his hand on her face to hold her off and started to laugh. She made kissy noises into his palm until he yelped. 

“You bit me,” he accused, still half-laughing.

“Your hand was in the danger zone.”

Morgana threw a pencil at Gwen. “Stop flirting, I don’t want to know. Merlin. Tell us about Kronk.” 

Glancing around the table at the others scribbling on scratch paper, taking notes, or poking each other and eating the snacks spread across the table, Merlin grinned. He might as well get into it. Raising one hand in the air like a Shakespearian actor preparing his to-be-or-not-to-be, he cleared his throat and started in.

**

The _grand_ barbarian Kronk is a half-orc of epic proportions and with his trusty - what the fuck is a bardiche, did anyone bring their laptop? 

Kronk goes around and exterminates things. Because he’s a barbarian with muscles the size of London. He has a gambling problem and likes to fish. He looks… like a half-orc. Does he get tusks? He should have tusks. 

**

Merlin accepted the tablet Morgana passed him and did a quick search. “That’s a bardiche? Okay then. Kronk wields a big fuckoff ice-skate blade taped to a pole. Also a greataxe. And Kronk knows Nymeria, because some things even a necromancer can’t take care of alone, so I’d say they’ve worked together before.” He and Gwen grinned at each other. 

Arthur, doodling on scratch paper, pointed at Morgana with his pen. “Kronk? Caliburn? Nymeria? Your naming schemes leave much to be desired. Your sources are showing.” 

“Your point?” Morgana said. She proceeded to ignore him in favor of continuing her narrative. 

**

You lot, a motley crew of exterminators, are in town all at the same time for whatever various reason. Maybe there was a bit of a tiff at the local graveyard between the grounds-keeper and his undead wards - not uncommon in this part of the world - or there was a lead on some sort of retrieval uniquely suited to a distressingly honorable rogue. Perhaps the lead fizzled out. Regardless, Leespire is hosts the lot of you in the same inn and, because the… oh, what the fuck, let’s call it the Sloshed Gazelle. The Sloshed Gazelle serves all their meals conveniently within very narrow windows, you end up at breakfast altogether.

**

“What ho!” Gwaine called across the table, startling Merlin half out of his chair. “That’s what Chastity says. What ho! Derezrel, old friend!” 

“Derezrel is probably glad to see a friendly face,” Arthur said, “Since I’m assuming he’s been on the road for quite some time, and alone.”

“Chastity links arms with the ugly old elf and drags him off for whatever they’re breakfasting on. Ale and cheese or something. As more people come down from their rooms, I snag them into our little social group.”

Merlin added, “I vouch for Gwen’s necromancer? My guy is really loud about it, if it matters.”

With a small smile, Morgana nodded her acknowledgment and continued.

**

The group coalesces around one of the inn’s tables, with various individuals introducing the ones they know to everyone else before settling down to steak and potatoes. The inn isn’t very creative when it comes to meals, but its lack of creativity is its strength; it serves a damn good breakfast steak. It is Chastity’s garrulousness that gets everyone on at least semi-friendly terms. Others in the inn for breakfast look in askance at the oddly-dressed - and just plain odd - Nymeria. 

In the background, the innkeeper putters about at his duties and lets the few of you chat long past breakfast time. Eventually, though, unless you decide to leave earlier, he comes over to shoo you out and pick up your plates. He’s mostly exasperated with how long you’ve stayed, but you did pay good silver for your meals so he merely says, “G’luck to you. I heard you were exterminators. Iff’n you’re lookin’ fur work, might head to the Spire and Waffle. Heard they gots themselfs a rat problem.” 

**

“No, no, no.” Arthur broke out of character with an exasperated flail of his hands. “You are not having us kill rats for our very first encounter. You are absolutely not. That is so cliche it’s the mother of all cliches. Also, that accent is terrible.” 

Morgana laughed at him, unimpressed. “I didn’t claim I’d be good at accents when I agreed to GM. You’ll just have to deal with it. Since you’re not GMing this time. Which I will remind you of as often as necessary until it sinks in. Besides, when have I ever done precisely what you expect?” A slow smile spread across her face. “I won’t railroad you into a particular plot, though. I’m just dropping hooks. You can take them or not. Your choice as a group.”

Lance, who had been thoughtfully silent through most of Arthur and Gwaine’s introductory banter, said, “Did you name the other inn the ‘Spire and Waffle’?” 

Grinning, Morgana directed a, “Well?” at the group as a whole. 

The silence that followed her words was brief, and Gwaine was the first to slip back into character. He winked at Merlin and pointed at Arthur and Gwen in turn.

**

“I think,” says Chastity, “That you lot did call yourselves mostly exterminators, and exterminators do take care of vermin. This Spire and Waffle place having rats seems right up your alley.” 

Derezrel glowers at all of them and grouses, “But really? Rats? Isn’t that a little beneath us?* Rats*?” 

“I’d like to stomp something. I’ve got a bardiche,” says Kronk. He hefts the weapon in question and grins at the rest of the group. There is a pause, but a brief one, and Maxim and Nymeria both weigh their opinions in favor of following the innkeep’s suggestion.

**

Gathering yourselves from the table and, with the wizard deliberately lagging behind, you make your way toward the dangling plothook. 

Leespire is not very large, though as a pit-stop of a town it contains far more than its fair share of the stereotypical fantasy taverns as well as some few un-stereotypical sorts as well. The Spire and Waffle is of the latter type, and it sports an automaton box on the front stoop. The arcane projection of a woman in full skirts leans on the railing that runs the length of the porch. As you all get close, she smiles brightly and straightens to greet you.

** 

“Welcome to the Spire and Waffle,” she says, “I’m Kit. Can I help you?” 

Chastity steps forward, does whatever sort of salute a paladin of Iomedae might do, and returns the greeting. “We-” She gestures at the rest of the party, including the sulky wizard in the silly hat at the back, and continues, “heard you have a rat problem.” 

“You heard correctly!” Kit says, sweeping an arm toward the door into the inn. “All ya’ll have to do is run on in there and chat with the innkeep and she’ll set you right up.”

It’s only a short flight of stairs up to the porch, and Kronk barrels right up, breezing past the automaton without a second look. Derezrel, the wizard, however, drags hard on Nymeria’s sleeve and points at the near-holographic girl who flickers just a bit, like an old movie full of scratches. 

“You need to help me figure out what that is.” 

Taken aback, Nymeria slowly says, “Detect magic on it? You’re the wizard.” 

** 

“The worst wizard ever,” Arthur complained, breaking character. “All of the information-gathering cantrips are in the Diviniation school, and Morgana didn’t let me have it. So that means I have to whine at the sorcerer to help me do wizard things.” 

Gwen laughed at him, settling back against Lance’s legs. “What if I don’t have detect magic? You might just be out of luck. Use a skill.” 

Arthur’s grumbles didn’t stop until he’d dug through the bag at his side and pulled out a handful of dice. He selected one of the larger ones and, with a pointed look at Morgana, rolled. His melodrama earned him no sympathy, however. Morgana just raised her eyebrows and waiting for him to find his character sheet.

Affectionately ruffling Gwen’s hair until she threw a crisp at him, Lance asked, “I thought dungeons and dragons is all high fantasy? What’s with the hologram?” 

“Skill?” Merlin asked at the same time. 

Arthur answered Merlin first. “Skill. Your sheet should have a long list of things like ‘acrobatics’ and ‘perception’. You roll a d20, and add the number in the skill modifier column. Which means I’m using knowledge arcana on this ‘Kit’ creature at…” 

Sighing, Arthur looked at his roll, then at his sheet again, and then back up at Morgana. “Fifteen?”

“Fifteen gives you a bit of insight,” Morgana said. “It’s an automaton from one of the more southern, volcanic nations, and has its serial number stamped on the side. It’s a mixture of illusion, conjuration, and evocation magics and - if you were to guess - it probably does a little bit more than your standard greater image. Like maybe breathe fire or something.” 

“I want one,” Arthur said, barely pausing before he launched into his explanation for the bewildered Merlin at his side. “There’s a ‘dc’ or difficulty that you need to hit when you roll a skill. She didn’t tell me much, and since I’ve actually GM’d before, I probably could have guessed that myself.” 

Morgana looked amused. “But you rolled.” 

“But I rolled.”

“Because I told you that you need to keep your meta knowledge to yourself.” 

Arthur sighed. “Because you told me to keep out of character knowledge out of the game.” 

“You’ll be fine, Arthur. You’ll just have to be creative with your character personality. Not all wizards have to be stodgy analytical shut-ins.”

Lance waved his arms to bring attention back to him. “High fantasy?”

“Right,” Morgana said, refocusing. “Dungeons and Dragons is a malleable system, and the game we’re playing is called Pathfinder which, short history lesson, is a version of the 3.5 Dungeons and Dragons that was created by a separate company when the official Dungeons and Dragons went on to their 4th edition. It’s Arthur’s favorite, which is why we’re playing it, and while the official Pathfinder setting is a little bit more traditionally European medieval high fantasy, Scibbland Zum is my own creation and I take liberties.” 

Gwaine added, a little bit lazily as he started in on his second beer, “You can mock-up just about any modern technology with a bit of thinking and a dint of clever spellcasting. There’s illusion spells that act like holograms in the core book to begin with. It’s a miracle that most settings are so firmly medieval, if you ask me.”

Nodding, Morgana said, “And there are all sorts of fascinating settings that aren’t takeoffs from Tolkien’s middle earth. If I can convince you of the joy that is roleplay, this game is only the beginning.” 

“I don’t know whether to be terrified or intrigued,” Lance said. “Now that Arthur’s finished doing wizard things, though, are we going in?” 

**

Everyone steps inside the Spire and Waffle, with the wizard Derezrel hanging back a bit to poke at Kit, much to the automaton’s annoyance. It is Maxim, the (kinky) halfling, who steps up to the innkeep and states their business. The rest cluster like an anxious flock of ducklings near the door and wait for the verdict. 

The innkeep blinks at the half-sized ginger before her and asks, “What are you lot doing here?” 

“We heard you have rats,” Maxim says.

“Oh, well, yes,” the innkeep replies. "I did have rats. I just don’t have rats anymore, thank goodness. A very nice bard came in earlier and piped them all away.

“So-” Derezrel says. “No rats.” 

“No rats.” 

( _“Morgana, I swear-”_ )

( _“Hush, Arthur,” Morgana told him. “When have I ever done anything straightforward?”_ )

Outside the Spire and Waffle there’s a flash of light through the doors. A moment later a thunderous roar rattles the windows and the ground shakes.

“The fuck was that?” says Chastity, her armor clanking as she rushes towards the door. She and Kronk get to the exit first and shove their way out to where Kit is cowering behind the railing. Kit’s stuck to her automaton base. She couldn’t flee if she wanted to. Outside, Chastity demands of Kit, “The fuck was that?” 

“Should paladins swear?” Kit asks, peeking between her fingers. Upon seeing the rest of the party crowding behind Kronk, she straightens. “I didn’t see much, only what looked like a ball of fire streaking down from the sky. It landed somewhere over there.” She points, and sure enough, there’s a small tendril of smoke coming from the general direction of the Sloshed Gazelle where the group took their morning meal. 

Derezrel shoves past the others and squints at the morning sky. 

( _Dice rolled across the table. Arthur, sounding pleased, said, “Twenty-two perception.”_ )

The most obvious thing that Derezrel sees is the Spire looming large over the town. As he looks up, up and up and up, in the far upper distance at top of the Spire, there’s a flash of color or light. It’s out of the ordinary, since there has never been any proof that anything actually lives up there. It’s only the wizard’s elf eyes and the raven on his shoulder that even let him spot anything at all.

Nymeria is the first to start forward, half-curious whether or not there will be any dead for her when they get to where the smoke is coming from. 

**

The sound of shouting gets louder as you approach, as does the crackle of flames and the clash of metal on metal. Rounding the corner, the scene laid out before you is that of a crater the size of a horsecart in the middle of the road. It does not, luckily, look like anyone was harmed by the initial impact of whatever it was, but there are several townspeople lying wounded at the edges of the road in front of the Sloshed Gazelle.

Surrounding the crater are the ugliest little creatures. They’re white scaled little reptiles who walk on two legs and wield bitty, tiny shortspears. A townsperson, armed with a carving knife, tries to get close to shoo them away, but the tiny dragon-people prove their intelligence by clustering together and stabbing at them with their spears. The townsperson quickly retreats.

**

Morgana stretched out to scoop up her water bottle and take a long drink. She busied herself in trying one of each of the foodstuffs arrayed on the table. When nobody did anything, however, she looked up and said, “Oh, yes, what are you going to do? There’s bitty white dragon-things with spears around a crater in the middle of town.” 

“Kobold?” Arthur asked, humming thoughtfully to himself. 

“Did I say they were kobolds?” 

Arthur paused. “You did not.” 

“Then they might not be kobolds.”

“Aha, are they evil?” Gwaine asked. He caught Merlin’s questioning expression and waved his hand vaguely in the air. “Detecting evil. Paladin thing. We’re like, psychic for whether or not something is evil.” 

“Evil,” Morgana agreed. “Tiny and evil.”

Silent, Arthur pointed at each of the others, his brow furrowed. “None of us are likely to have knowledge nature.” 

Morgana shook her head. “Sorry.” 

“You could have at least given us a range of skills.” 

“I gave you each character-relevant skills. It’s up to you to work with what you have. You’ll be surprised at what happens when you’re not optimized.” 

“Are you setting us up to fail?” Arthur protested, almost sounding… angry. 

The unimpressed look Morgana gave him had Merlin sinking into his cushions so he wasn’t in the line of fire. “I’m setting you up to get creative, for god’s sake. Arthur. Relax. Just relax. I’ve run a no-healer group of mass-murdering sociopaths before, a two-player pacifist World of Darkness, and a group half made of bards. You _know_ how much I love third edition bards, and we still made it through the game having ridiculous amounts of fun. You. Will. Be. Fine. Let the fuck go.”

Arthur was silent for all of half a second. “But are they kobolds?”

Morgana closed her eyes and wrapped her hand around the cup of pens she’d been using to take notes. Merlin suppressed a wild giggle over the very real possibility that, from the look on her face, she might throw the entire thing at her brother.

“Does it matter?” Merlin asked, piping up so that he wouldn’t accidentally get bombarded with pens if Morgana’s aim was off. “I mean, Gwaine said they were evil. Do we just kill all evil things? Stomp stomp ice-skate to the face? I’m all for stomp stomp ice-skate to the face.” 

“Oh for god’s sake, Arthur, just ask them if they’re kobolds.” Gwen said, exasperated. “They look like bitty dragons. Even if they’re not kobolds, they probably speak draconic. You are completely allowed to do something other than hack’n’slash.”

Looking nonplussed, Arthur lifted his character sheet and frowned at it. “I… oh.” 

( _“What’s going on here?” Derezrel shouts in draconic at the tiny white dragon-people. “Are you kobolds?”_ )

“Smooth,” Gwen said. She shifted on the couch to give Lance more room for his feet. “Very smooth. Arthur, sweetie, you’re not allowed to stress over the game, starting now. Take a page out of Gwaine’s book. He’s buzzed already and gives no fucks for mechanics. I guarantee you he’s going to have a great time tonight, aren’t you Gwaine?” 

Gwaine winked at her before direction his words toward Arthur. “C’mon, Princess. I knew it would be hard for you to let big-sis GM, but this is ridiculous. We’re not Leon’s group, and we don’t min-max and twink the fuck out of our characters like your groups do. Metagaming is fine for other game styles, but you agreed not to metagame.” 

“If I wanted to torture myself, we’d be playing Hackmaster,” Arthur muttered, just barely loud enough for Merlin to hear. 

Morgana, though, with her psychic super-hearing, caught every syllable. “No Hackmaster, no torture. You’re just going to have to get used to our more casual gaming style. We discussed this. I’m a storyteller type, you’re a dungeon master type. You wanted to try my style and not worry about designing the perfect character and the perfect party. So _try my style_. I swear, Arthur, are you alright? You’re usually not so much of a prima donna.”

For a long count of ten, Arthur just stared at her, some of the exhaustion and stress of the day returning to his expression. Merlin could have sworn Arthur glanced over at him briefly, but it was so quick he was half-convinced he imagined the motion. 

Arthur deflated. “I’m fine. I’ll be fine. It’s just-” he paused, a wry smile sneaking onto his lips. “Different.” 

“Different isn’t bad,” Morgana said tartly before shifting back into her GM persona. “Now, to answer your wizard…” 

** 

The entire coterie of tiny white dragon-things direct their attention to Derezrel, looking half-confused that a silly-hat-wearing wizard is shouting things at them in their native language. They confer for a moment before one shouts back, “Yes kobold, why?” 

Derezrel hesitates over his reply before calling back, “What’s with the crater?” 

“Ours!” The leader of them shakes his spear in the wizard’s direction. Another townsperson tries to get close and is prodded away by the sharp end of their spears. “Not has! Get get get away!”

“Shouty little things,” Nymeria says, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “Can anyone see what it is that’s theirs?” 

All of them peer toward the crater. Of all of them, though, only the halfling and the paladin have good enough of a vantage to garner any worthwhile information. Within the crater appears to be a brilliant green hunk of rock, jagged on one end and partially translucent. It is, as Chastity helpfully informs the party as soon as this information is shared, also evil. Or at least it’s putting out an aura of evil, which she rather objects to on principle. 

Nymeria shakes her head and says, “It is theirs, though, evil or not. They’re just defending it.”

“I’m with the paladin on this one,” says the wizard Derezrel. “They’ve already harmed townsfolk and I don’t think I’m going to let that go.” He lifts his hands and lets fly a missile of force at the largest and most leader-y looking of the kobolds.

**

“And, with that, Arthur neatly circumvents whatever philosophical point Gwen was going to bring up and starts combat,” Morgana said. “Roll initiative. Everyone.”

Merlin glanced across the table at Lance and ventured, “Who in the what now?”

“Dice time, nubs!” Gwaine declared. He reached across the table. A third beer had joined the first two on the tabletop. “Find your d20s!” 

Dragging the backpack at his feet into his lap, Merlin followed orders. Will had filled Merlin’s backpack with ‘everything he might need at a game’, which included but was not limited to: a large bag of assorted dice, two or three notebooks of varying sizes (Merlin’s choice of which to use), colored markers, a candy bar (currently melting half out of its wrapper, dammit Will), and Merlin was pretty sure the bag at the bottom making squeaky noises was not actually a live creature, but he couldn’t be sure and he certainly wasn’t going to remove the bag inside of Morgana’s flat to check. 

The dicebag thumped on the table, smearing the scratch paper with chocolate he hadn’t realized had melted into the fabric. “Ah, fuck, sorry, Will put sweets in my bag,” he said, “Anyone have napkins? Towels? Anything?” 

Morgana stood and started towards her kitchen, pressing down on Merlin’s shoulder as she passed. “Calm. Find a d20. Roll it. Breathe in, breathe out. Fight kobolds. All will be well.” 

“Can I have that on a t-shirt?” Merlin quipped, trying to reclaim Will’s dice without smearing chocolate over anything else. “I think I ended up with your kinky chocolate by mistake, Lance, courtesy of Will.” 

Lance snorted. “He must have been eager. I’ll call it even if you let me borrow some of those dice.”

“As long as you’re not borrowing the GM’s dice,” Arthur said, rolling his dice and checking the number against his sheet. “That’s bad news. We’ll all die.” 

One of the dice, a nice orange one with big black numbers, had a twenty on one of its sides, so Merlin figured he’d found what he was looking for. Digging a random handful out of the bag, he extended himself over the table only to fall short of actually being able to reach Lance’s outstretched hand. 

“I didn’t take you for superstitious, Arthur,” Gwen said as she looked up from her own dice and accepted the handful in Lance’s place, passing them on. 

“Don’t use the GM’s dice, bad luck. Don’t borrow anyone’s dice without their permission. Don’t yell at your d20s for rolling crits on non-essential rolls or you’ll train them that you get mad when they do well. Punish them with freezing if they roll poorly. Keep them between your, or someone else’s, breasts to encourage good behavior, or rub them on an autograph to imbue them with luck,” Arthur rattled off, barely paying attention to himself. 

Arthur’s eyes were on Merlin, making it hard for him to figure out what he was supposed to be rolling. Whatever Morgana had told him to roll was becoming increasingly elusive under scrutiny, and he was still holding his chocolate-covered bag in one hand because it was far too dangerous to set down. His arm wobbled. Will had probably packed his entire dice collection to send with Merlin out of solidarity. 

“There’s a box on your sheet that says ‘initiative’. No, up a bit… there. Just add that to the number on your dice,” Arthur said, gesturing. His arm came too close to Merlin’s, and so did his face as he leaned over to help.

Merlin flashed him a slightly embarrassed smile. “Right.” 

“That’s quite the list,” Gwen said, drawing Arthur’s attention away from how Merlin’s ears were turning a brilliant red. Merlin could have kissed her for the rescue. 

Arthur looked up at her, sitting back just enough that Merlin could start breathing again. “What? Oh, the superstitions? There are probably a hundred and more than that. Dice are as random as they can be, after all, and rituals to influence random events are human nature.” 

Returning from the kitchen, Morgana passed Merlin a wet paper towel and a beer of his own. Her hand came down briefly on his shoulder again with a reassuring squeeze before she ensconced herself back in her chair. “Now,” she said, ignoring Merlin trying to scrub chocolate from his dice bag and everything it had touched. “Initiatives?” 

Each of them piped up with a number that Morgana wrote down on an index card in front of her and when everyone had volunteered their rolls, she grinned in Lance’s direction.

“I take it I’m first?” Lance asked. “Why am I not surprised.” 

Gwen reached over to pat his cheek. “And least you’re not _always_ first or I’d have to trade you in at the Spire.” 

There was a beat of silence as they all blinked at Gwen. Lance’s brilliant blush eclipsed Merlin’s as the group began to roar in laughter, though the slight smile on his face said that her comment wasn’t entirely unappreciated.

“Combat-” Morgana began as soon as the laughter died enough for her to be heard. "Goes in rounds. Each round, each of you will have a turn, based on the number you just gave me. Lance’s first, and we’ll go down the list from there. You’ll each have a chance to take one action and move from one place to another.

“Luckily, both of you are either ‘hit things hard’ or ‘stab things lots’, so figuring out what you want to do should be relatively easy. I do give bonuses for cinematic or well-described actions, so when you’re coming up with something to do, don’t be afraid to get a bit creative. Now… are we ready? Lance?” 

**

Maxim rolls to his right, using the sudden focus of the kobolds on his very distracting, somewhat overzealous, wizard friend to get around to the side and stab the everliving fuck out of one of them. It screams when it dies, a wrenching noise it shouldn’t be able to make without lungs. As it falls, their leader goes down on one knee, wheezing from the burn on its side.

The kobolds outnumber the group two to one, but Chastity wastes no time in slinging her shield around from her back and wading forward into the melee. Bardiche up, Kronk too stamps into the midst of a gathering clutch of kobolds and begins lay about him with the sharp end. They shout at the townspeople to get back, and those that have already found themselves at the wrong end of a spear collect their wounded and clear the street as swiftly as possible. 

The two magic users hang back partially out of self-preservation, but also because a couple of the kobolds refuse to come around and join the fight properly. They guard the other side of the crater from anyone that might take advantage of the fight to make off with their prize, proving that they know how to throw spears as well as stab with them. Sharing a look, Nymeria and Derezrel send force missiles after their quarries. 

After first strikes, the battle becomes bloody. With enough kobolds with shortspears clustered around the paladin and the barbarian, one or two land their thrusts on vulnerable flesh. The luck of the ginger allows Maxim to escape damage, and he scoots back down into the crater itself to use the edge for cover.

Nymeria steps through the motions of a simple spell and grabs the shoulder of the nearest kobold. A moment later, it shrieks and tries to flee, whatever it sees in her face scaring it silly. 

That, however, is the high point of the fight. The rest goes increasingly poorly. The party doesn’t quite know what it can do yet, and so its efforts and coordination are shoddy at best. The poor rogue is sent halfway across the battlefield in four different directions before a suitable position can be found for him that won’t get his ass handed to him by half a dozen shortspears. 

A long line of frozen air spears from Derezrel’s fingers and instead of hitting anything he wishes to hit, it passes far too close to Chastity’s face before freezing a hole in the side of the Sloshed Gazelle. 

Kobolds, for as fierce as they are, are relatively fragile creatures. The comedy of errors that is a wizard, a barbarian, a necromancer, a paladin, and a rogue, succeed in eliminating the threat by taking down each enemy… eventually. 

The last living kobold, the leader, lets fly its spear and gains a lucky hit on Derezrel half a second before Kronk’s bardiche flattens the dragon-thing into the ground with more muscle than blade. 

Derezrel goes down onto his knees, wheezing, blood between his fingers and a shortspear sticking from his ribs. He glowers at Chastity as she comes over to help. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he says, ripping it loose with a grunt and curling over his side. “They’re barely dangerous.” 

“They’re dangerous to us considering the whole lack of experience thing,” says Chastity. She herself isn’t looking too much better. Her armor’s scraped and dented, and she has a bit of a nasty cut over one eye. “Seriously, though, we’re not hot-shot godkillers just yet. Give it a bit.” 

Kronk wanders over with the rest of them to stare at Derezrel. He, at least, looks alright. He frowns. “So… how do we fix this? Any of you have healing magic or something?” 

Chastity shrugs. “Not yet.” 

The others shake their heads. 

“Brilliant,” Derezrel grouses, wiping the blood on his hands off on his robes and straightening. “Just brilliant. No cleric. No druid, even. What are we supposed to do?” 

Turning, Maxim trundles off toward the dead kobold leader, smiling politely as the curious poke their heads out from stores and homes to see what’s going on. He rummages a bit in the leader’s belongings before coming back. 

“Catch,” he tells Derezrel, lobbing a small bottle of goopy green liquid at the wizard. “I think we’re supposed to get creative.”

Derezrel swears and, without checking to see what it is that he’s drinking, he downs the bottle. 

Wincing, Nymeria holds her breath. 

Nothing happens. At least nothing that the others can see. 

“What’d it do?” asks Maxim, sounding worried when Derezrel just continues to stand there. 

“Ah. Healing potion,” Derezrel says, coughing lightly. “Tastes like… cure light wounds.”

A ripple of relief goes through the party. 

“There’s more,” Maxim thumbs over his shoulder. “Shouldn’t have too much of a problem with healing if we’re smart, then.” 

Nymeria hums contemplatively as everyone shuffles over to the corpse to prod at it and loot the remains. Using her toe to dump the contents of its carrypouch, she says, “More than I would expect a kobold to be carrying, that’s for sure.” 

“Let’s check the others,” says Chastity. 

The spoils divvied - a handful of trinkets, several healing potions that earn their fair share of suspicion, and some extra silver - they go to stand in front of the jagged green block and finally figure out why they were fighting tiny, evil kobolds in the middle of an otherwise perfectly normal town. 

Kronk fidgets, feeling a bit stupid standing around staring at rocks, but the wizard and the necromancer appear engrossed. Even the paladin is paying attention. 

“It’s a-” Derezrel begins after prodding the thing a bit. “It’s some sort of tablet, and these squidgy little markings mean death-something.” 

“Summoning,” Nymeria volunteers. “Summoning something already dead.” She sounds positively delighted. So much so that the rogue gives her an extra wide berth as she straightens from the tablet. 

Chastity, however, has the last word. “It’s a ritual that you two would be able to learn,” she says, gesturing to the wizard and the necromancer. “But it’s tied to one of the minor gods that these things worshiped. It’s, ah, evil. Evil like eat-everyone-in-Leespire-in-tribute evil.”

With that, all of them stare at the tablet. 

“We should probably take it with us,” says Kronk. 

“We should-” Maxim begins, bouncing on his toes and raising his voice to be heard, “-probably also figure out why it’s only half a tablet.” 

There’s a beat of silence, then the others murmur their assent. 

A crowd has reformed in the street, clustering up to the edge of the crater. Chastity shouts her questions up at their audience. “Did any of ya’ll see which way they came from?” 

Half the crowd point right down the street and out of town, straight at the Spire itself. 

“Ah,” Derezrel says. “Why am I not surprised?” 

**

“That seems like a good place to stop for the night,” Morgana said. “If you get started on the next part tonight we’ll be here past midnight.”

Gwaine, stretching in his seat and kicking his legs out in front of him, said, “I think I speak for everyone when I say ‘I have work in the morning’.” 

“‘Morning’,” Gwen teased him, using air-quotes. “The restaurant doesn’t open until two. You’re the only one of us here who regularly sleeps past eight a.m.” 

“Semantics.” Gwaine slid from his chair and gathered up his discarded bottles. The movement was a signal to Gwen and Lance that it was time to help tidy up as well. The two of them started half out of their seats and began collecting empty plates and cups. When Merlin made as if to help, Lance waved him down into his seat again. 

Morgana handed up her own bottle as Lance came around to her chair in collection and gave Arthur an amused look. “I promise I’m not going to let you die horribly because you lack healing.” 

“My wizard should be dead and it was only our first combat,” Arthur said, leaning forward to but his elbows on his knees. “A lucky crit would finish him off.” 

“Which would happen whether or not you’ve a cleric in the group, and you know it,” Morgana told him, though not without sympathy. “Even if it did, we can just roll you a new character.”

Arthur huffed a laugh at her and lapsed into silence. Lance, Gwen, and Gwaine took themselves to the kitchen, laden with garbage and dishes. The sound of their conversation drift back to the sitting room. 

In an effort to cheer him up, Merlin ventured, “I had fun? I got to smash stuff. And I want to know what Morgana has planned for us.”

“The Spire,” Arthur told him, abruptly standing. With a series of swift, efficient motions, he collected his things and prepared to leave. “The phallic symbol she’s going to torture us with for the next twenty levels and who knows how many sessions, which, _believe_ me, I’m looking forward to.” Shooting a tight smile at Merlin, he offered his excuses to his bag as he hefted it to his shoulder. “I’m sorry to game and run, but I need to get going. Grading.” 

“Grading,” Morgana said, her tone neutral. She put out a hand to stop Merlin when he would have otherwise gotten up. “If you say so. I’ll see you next week.” 

Deflating with a sigh, Arthur gave her a smile that was barely a smile. “Next week. Same time. I’ll bring pizza.” 

“Hopefully you’ll bring better humor.” 

“Morgana. Merlin,” Arthur said, “Give the others my love.” He found his shoes by the front door and it was swinging shut behind him before Merlin could gather enough of his wits to even attempt a farewell of his own. 

Baffled, Merlin turned to Morgana. “Did I say something?” 

“No, he’s just embarrassed that he’s an idiot,” she said with a sigh. “I knew it would be a bit touch and go with him and his… you know Arthur, though. You know what he’s like.” 

“He’s not usually so, um, grumpy.” 

“That’s one word for it. He’ll get over himself, though, or I’ll tell him to leave. The rest of you seem to be doing well enough that we could keep on without him.” 

Coming out of the kitchen, Gwaine was the first to ask, “Where’s our Princess?” 

“Swore he was turning into a pumpkin and ran,” Morgana said, unfolding herself from her chair and beginning cleanup of her own. “He left his love, though.” 

Shaking his head, Gwaine helped while Gwen and Lance started helping each other pack up. Merlin got his handful of dice back, prompting him to do the same.

“What did you both think?” Gwen asked Lance and Merlin.

They answered in unison. 

“Fun,” said Merlin.

“Different,” said Lance. 

Gwen’s bright smile was infectious, and Merlin couldn’t help but grin at both her and Lance as she asked, “But fun different or just different different?” 

“I don’t know what I expected to have to do as a kinky halfling, to be honest,” Lance said, drawing his words out as he thought, “but I’m pretty sure I didn’t expect any of what the game is actually like.”

“Good.” Gwen patted his cheek. “We’ll make a gamer of you yet.” 

Cleanup went swiftly with five people helping, and soon enough all of Morgana’s guests were packed up and heading out the door. Merlin was trying to dust white cat hair off of his jeans - the stuff hid on all of Morgana’s furniture, sneakily blending in with the fabric - when Morgan put a hand on his shoulder and signaled that he should stay behind for a moment. 

The others waved their goodbyes and carted their leftovers out the door while Merlin loitered. When the door shut behind Gwaine, Morgana said, “I’m sorry for my brother’s behavior.” 

“He’s not someone you need to apologize for.” 

“I did throw you into a tiny room together, though, and expected him to deal as well as you do.” 

Her words were as close as Morgana ever got to actually accepting her human fallibility. It seemed a shame for her to waste one of her non-apologies on something that was patently not her fault. “I seriously doubt he has nearly as much trouble,” Merlin said, and that was almost too much to admit, even to Morgana. “I made an ass of myself and I don’t blame him for running screaming in the opposite direction.” 

With an odd little smile, Morgana rubbed Merlin’s upper arm reassuringly. “He didn’t run screaming, though. That’s what gets me.” 

“Sure looked like it from my perspective.” 

“Honest to God, Merlin, I think he’s processing,” she said. “He’s full-speed-ahead until he has concrete information telling him to change course. You threw his world so off its axis that it’s going to take him time to reorient.”

“Gee, thanks, Morgana. Your mixed metaphors make me feel so much better.” 

“Sarcasm befits you.”

“It’s been weeks. Months, even,” Merlin said. “I just…” 

He faltered.

Morgana stroked her fingers down the curve of Merlin’s cheek, her expression a mixture of sympathy and exasperation. “You miss him.”

“The absolute worst case scenario is _what happened_. Of course I miss him.” It was easier to talk when Morgana was saying all of the things Merlin couldn’t force past the clog in his throat. “Fuck, Morgana. Why am I even trying to be within ten feet of him? This was a terrible idea.” 

“He needs his friends,” Morgana said, dropping her hand. “And you are his best.” 

“I question your use of the present tense.” 

She was silent for a long moment. “Do you regret agreeing to play?” 

Hesitating, Merlin said, “Well…” but his lip twitched ever so slightly. Morgana narrowed her eyes. With a small laugh, he waved his hand in negation. “No, no. I did actually have fun. And it was nice to just… hang out with him, even if he was being kind of a prat tonight about you being GM. Really, it was nice to see everyone. I never get to see the others. Too much life in the way.” 

“No regrets is good,” Morgana said with a firm nod. “If I break my NDA I might actually be shot and none of us want that.” 

“Not at all,” Merlin said with his customary grin. The expression felt good, helping chase away the vestiges of guilt from Arthur’s swift exit. “I’ll see you next week?” 

Morgana finally let him go, waving him out the door. “Next week. Don’t be late.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I'm writing this as a serial, and as an experiment, your comments are more than appreciated. :)
> 
> I'm keeping both an livejournal and a tumblr for my fic and fic-related things, so feel free to follow me at either [Desiderii-fic on tumblr](http://desiderii-fic.tumblr.com/) or [Desiderii on Lj](http://desiderii.livejournal.com).


	2. Session 2: Starting Over

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin suffers a bout of regret, the adventuring party lets themselves into the Spire, and everyone is concerned about Gwaine.

The next week, in the vague vicinity of six pm, Morgana answered Merlin’s knock dressed for a date. Her hair piled high and studded with gemstones, she wore sparklies in each ear that Merlin did not doubt were real diamond and her curve-hugging, decolletage-framing black dress was picked with chips of something subtle that caught the light as she opened the door. Merlin peered past her into her apartment to find it empty and unprepared for gaming. He checked his watch. If anything, he was late. 

“Am I supposed to be here tonight?” Merlin asked. “Otherwise I’ll just leave you for whoever you were expecting.” 

Morgana’s forehead furrowed briefly. “Arthur didn’t text you.” 

“Pretty sure Arthur forgot my number.”

“Now I know that isn’t true. Arthur’s getting pizza,” Morgana said, gesturing him inside. “He’s probably just a coward. You’re only early. Feel welcome to sit as long as you don’t mind entertaining Aithusa while I’m in the shower. A last minute lunch came up for work and I couldn’t beg off on prior commitments.”

Merlin followed her in and tripped over her discarded stilettos. “You’re dressed to the nines for a _work lunch_? You are legitimately terrifying me away from ever wanting to graduate into the industry. You look like you’re ready to kill a man.” 

“If only. The company is ready to try anything to land this particular client, and apparently someone asked for me specifically. It was almost an interrogation - to the point where I had to try and give them the two hour version of my Master’s thesis.” Morgana sighed and tilted her head to fiddle with the post on her earring. Gesturing, she had Merlin drop his backpack in the squashy chair he’d used last week hold out his hands while she systematically removed her battle armor. 

Merlin ended up with a double handful of gemstones: Four earrings and a cartilage cuff, a necklace pricey enough to buy Merlin’s apartment with Will still in it, a pair of diamond-encrusted hair sticks that looked like they could be sharpened into points without too much trouble, and a bracelet that required a full thirty seconds to unwrap from her arm. She ruffled her hair, let it fall around her shoulders, and turned her back to Merlin. “Unzip.” 

It took Merlin a good five seconds to sort out that she meant him to unzip the back of her dress for her. Juggling jewelry into one hand, Merlin braced his elbow on the bottom of the zipper to keep it taut and tugged the pull down. His grip slipped - not on the zipper, but on the jewelry. An earring escaped through his fingers and dropped to the floor to be pounced by a massive white Persian cat.

“Don’t eat that,” Morgana scolded, one arm wrapped around her upper torso to keep from flashing Merlin as she turned. She held her cat at bay with her toes while Merlin stooped to pick up the fallen earring. “Just dump that nonsense on the dresser. Let Arthur in when he shows up.”

Morgana swept from the room without a backward look and left Merlin with a disgruntled cat and a double handful of diamonds. Aithusa pawed at Merlin’s leg. When he looked down, she gave him the most pathetic mew he’d ever heard. “None of these are for you,” he told her. 

The bedroom was across from the bathroom, and Merlin poked his head in first to make sure that Morgana was well and truly in the shower like the running water suggested. She had only faked him out the one time, but better cautious than trying to fight an adrenaline surge while Morgana shouted at him to lower his voice. That particular prank war had taught him many things about the Pendragons. 

He dumped the jewelry on the top of her dresser among other scattered baubles and dusted his hands together. The scent of Morgana’s perfume clung to his fingers. Aithusa fuzzed his ankles with her chin, purring as loud as she could, and much to her dismay, he scooped her up, squeezed her, and buried his face in her fur. Incense combined with cat dander tickled his nose. 

He took a moment just to breathe while he stood in the center of Morgana’s inner sanctum. Her room had color where the living room did not, all greens and golds and heirloom walnuts. Half-melted candles dotted every surface, and even though her altar in the corner had a cloth frayed by tiny kitty teeth, the dust of burnt offerings in the center bowl gave him the distinct feeling that he was trespassing on sacred ground. The heaviness of the room weighed on him comfortably, though, a warm blanket well loved, and he was grateful for a moment out of the way to pull himself together before everyone arrived.

The family pictures clustered together on the walls were the same as those in Arthur’s bedroom, and Morgana had a yellowed scrap of paper with her name spelled out in tropical birds just like Arthur did. Aithusa squeaked as Merlin tightened his grip on her. He turned in a slow circle. 

Arthur had gotten the headboard of the same set that Morgana’s dresser came from, and the ugly hat studded with ridiculous buttons that they passed back and forth at birthdays and Christmasses hung from a hook besides her closet door. Arthur’s room was rough and utilitarian compared to Morgana’s, but there was enough sibling crossover that it made Merlin - for lack of a better word - homesick. The thought was enough to propel him from the room before the feeling grew any stronger.

Merlin shouldered out the door, cat in arms, and halted at the edge of the living room to breathe. They were meeting at Morgana’s flat because it was neutral space for both him and Arthur. He could survive seeing him once a week. 

The door to the flat opened without a knock and Arthur shoved his way in arse-first carrying a stack of pizza boxes. “Morgana?” he called. “Do you just want me to put these in the kitchen?” He finished his turn and kicked the door shut before he spotted Merlin across the room.

Arthur halted and screwed his face into a perplexed frown. Lips pursed, he looked Merlin up and down with narrow eyes. Merlin could practically see the smoke coming out of his ears. Then Arthur swore, and the realization that cleared his expression brought an answering smile to Merlin’s. 

“You forgot,” Merlin said, not bothering to hide his amusement. 

“I might have forgotten to text you, yes,” Arthur replied. “Want to help me-”

Merlin cut him off by hefting Aithusa. She flicked the tip of her tail and purred loud enough to vibrate Merlin’s entire chest. “Cat.” 

“Cat.” Arthur snorted. “Cat is spoiled. Come on then.” 

Merlin followed Arthur to the kitchen and stood idly by with Aithusa sacked out in his arms while Arthur arranged the pizza boxes buffet style. He fumbled for something to say that wasn’t too inane or too much like an apology. Arthur had ordered him never to apologize, but the regret that had chased him from Morgana’s room weighed heavily in this thoughts. He knew better than to expect apologizing would fix anything, but if it could, if it did - he’d only know if he broke is promise and tried. 

The clink of the plate stack on Morgana’s counter-top told him he’d wasted too much time thinking.

“Sorry about last week,” Arthur said into the silence. He turned to lean against the kitchen counter and fold his arms across his chest. On the other side of the apartment, the running shower shut off. “My only excuse is that it had been a long day.” 

“Long day or not,” Merlin said, “You were rather rude.” 

“I brought apology pizza, I hope to be forgiven.” 

“You can’t just bribe everyone with food when you’re a prat. It’s a transparent ploy.” 

“Worth a try.” 

Despite the lingering anxiety of ‘I fucked this up’ and ‘I wish I could go back’ that had settled in his stomach, Merlin smiled over Aithusa’s head. “Well, I’m not going to complain.” 

Arthur picked up a plate and began to fill it with slices of vegetable and spiced cheese. Merlin looked at him in askance. With a wedge of pesto, Arthur gestured at Merlin’s furry passenger. The motion flung an olive halfway across the kitchen. 

They both followed it’s trajectory to where it hit the cupboards with a splorch and when Merlin looked up again to find Arthur watching him, Arthur said, “You can’t very well serve yourself while Aithusa’s taking a nap, can you?” 

Merlin could only nod. Arthur led the way out to the living room with two plates full of pizza, and he followed without a word. 

Aithusa aggressively refused to leave Merlin’s lap even after he sat. He had to eat his pizza around her head while she kneaded the center of his chest and made it hard to breathe. Plucking a long white hair from the slice of pesto, he offered it to Arthur a grin. “I want a cat.”

“Of course you want a cat,” Arthur said. He relieved Merlin of the hair and dropped it to the side of his chair with a disdainful flick of his fingers. “You can have Aithusa.”

“Giving my baby away again? What have I told you about that?” Morgana came out of her bedroom in jeans and a t-shirt, rubbing at her hair with a towel.

Arthur turned in his seat and saluted Morgana with a slice of pepperoni. “I wouldn’t have to if she didn’t come back.”

Ruffling Merlin’s hair as she passed, Morgana carried on past to the shelves built into the wall and pulled her gaming books. “Aithusa’s just mad at him for petsitting the last time I was out of town.” 

“Easy to blame Arthur,” Merlin agreed. “He makes a good scapegoat.” 

Around a mouthful of pizza, Arthur protested, “That was once and she was _fine_. And you two are not allowed to gang up on me.” 

“Of course we are,” Morgana said. A book stack thumped down on the table. A moment later, she dropped her stuffed dragon on top of them with a flourish. “It’s practically tradition at this point, the last few months notwithstanding, isn’t it boys?” 

Arthur blanched at the question. Merlin shot Morgana a frown.

She gave both him and Arthur a raised-eyebrow look of ‘what are you going to do about it’ and left for the kitchen. 

Merlin smushed Aithusa’s face away from his pizza with an open palm and said, “Sorry about making you petsit. I were out of my mind with stress over a build demo.” 

“Oh, no, it was nothing,” Arthur said, tone light, but Merlin could still hear the strain from Morgana’s comment. “Aithusa just, you know, signalled her displeasure at it being me to give her tinned fish by shitting halfway across the flat.” 

“Aithusa,” Merlin scolded. Her ears flicked forward at the sound of his voice and she gave him a slow blink of contentment. Morgana’s dig only called attention to the elephant playing with itself in the corner, but so far tonight Arthur had been… pleasant. Careful to keep their banter superficial, _sure_ , but pleasant for all of that, almost like they were starting all over again. If that was going to be Arthur’s tactic to repair what Merlin had broken, he was going to go along with it whether Morgana thought it was a good idea or not. “She didn’t.” 

“Of course she did. She left a streak across the carpet that I had to get steamed out. Are you questioning my word?” 

Merlin had every intention of doing just that, but he was interrupted sharp rap at the door that was quickly followed by Lance and Gwen. They called their greetings as they hung their coats and kicked off their shoes. Arthur’s announcement that there was pizza met with a cheerful ‘huzzah’ and they disappeared kitchen-ward. Gwaine waltzed in not a minute later wearing a piratical silk shirt and smelling of roast meat and rum. 

With varying levels of enthusiasm, everyone curled up in their chairs with a slice of peace offering. Gwaine reclaimed the single across from Arthur and Merlin, and Lance escorted Gwen to the sette across from Morgana with two plates piled high. Gwen set a beer in front of everyone and sprawled out on the sette like she’s just finished a marathon. She only grudgingly let Lance shove her legs over so he could sit. 

“You look right beat,” Gwaine told Gwen. “What happened?” 

Gwen took a bottle-opener to her beer and rewarded herself with a swig before she answered. “Just a customer from hell. Bloody entitled arsehole demanding I valet the inside of his shite car when we’ve never - ever - offered those kind of services. I told him that, politely and repeatedly, until eventually I just had to say I wasn’t his maid and he was just going to have to vacuum his own mats.” She let her head fall back against the arm of the sette. “It was a nightmare. After the first ten minutes of him just blatantly ignoring everything I said about what the shop was actually capable of, I started to think I was going crazy.” Half-startled, she sat up and clutched at Lance’s arm. “We don’t valet, do we?”

“You don’t valet,” Lance reassured her. He passed over her pizza.

“Thank god,” Gwen said. Plate in hand, she flopped back again in relief. “An hour of my life I will never get back. It set the mood for my whole day.” 

Merlin added his commiserating noises in with the others, but was distracted by Aithusa’s bulk finally became a legitimate obstacle for fairly important things like finishing his pizza and setting up for game. Merlin wrinkled his nose at her as she batted at his fingers, trying to tug down the last slice of spiced cheese for her own. “Aithusa, sweetheart, I think you’ve just earned your exile.” 

Leaving Arthur to chuckle at his back, Merlin levered himself out of his chair with Aithusa still clinging to his torso and carted her off. Lance was mid-story by the time Merlin disentangled Aithusa’s claws from from his shirt and returned. The bedroom door muted Aithusa’s yowled objections to being locked away from all the tasty cheese and dice. Merlin listened to Lance with half an ear as he fished Will’s dicebag out of his pack.

“The call didn’t do him justice, I swear. He’s an old tom that’s just absolutely massive, and he’s missing fur in great big patches,” Lance said. He made exaggerated ‘ripping fur out’ gestures from his shoulders and side. “He honestly looks like he has the mange, but it’s just battle scarring. He is probably the ugliest cat I’ve ever seen, and he’s just barely friendly enough to make our adoption criteria.”

Gwen made a small noise around a mouthful of cheese, though whether it was for the story or her pizza, Merlin couldn’t be sure. She swallowed and said, “You think he has a chance?” 

“Not if there’s a kitten anywhere within ten kilometers.” Lance systematically opened the rest of everyone’s beers for them and sat back with a sigh. “We’ll keep him as long as we can at the shelter, though, just in case.”

“Good luck on that,” Gwaine said. He rolled his eyes over to where Morgana was setting out the crisps and her mug full of pencils and her GM dice. “I’m more interested in speculating what Morgana got up to today that had us start game late.” 

“Work,” Morgana said, dropping into her chair. “I thought I mentioned.” 

“If work means you spend several hundred pounds monopolizing one of my mates the entire afternoon. Why didn’t you ask for me?” 

Morgana flipped open her folder and began to pass out everyone’s character sheet. Merlin handed Arthur his, and Morgana pulled out another sheet that she frowned at and returned to her folder. “Because you’d ask questions, and I can’t answer questions. Everyone grab a pencil.” 

The rustle of books and the rattle of dice against Morgana’s tabletop did not deter Gwaine in the least. “The suits you were with were dressed awful sharp for a work event. You had on diamonds. Like, a shittonne of diamonds.” 

“They wanted to impress.” Morgana flashed Gwaine a sharp smile. “So did I.” 

“Are you sure it wasn’t some sort of BDSM date? Toward the end they all had those pained looks on their faces like they were thinking too hard, or like you were indulging in a little CBT under the table.” Morgana laughed and threw a pencil at him. He deflected it with a smooth motion that ended with his fingers curled around the neck of his beer. “I’m just saying. They looked pretty pleased and a bit sore when everyone filed out.” Gwaine gave her a suggestive, knowing look over the lip of his beer bottle and knocked back a long swallow.

“Gwaine,” Morgana said, exasperated, “I can’t tell you anything.”

“Oh, come on, you were at my restaurant for hours and hours torturing me with the mystery of it all and now I can’t even-” Gwaine cut himself off mid-whinge as Merlin chuckled more loudly than he intended. The collective attention of the room swung in Merlin’s direction, interrupted only by Morgana passing Lance and Gwen’s sheets across the table.

Merlin held up his hands in innocence. “She’s under an NDA, and if I’m right about the kind of research-” Morgana sat up in alarm. “-I’m not going to say Morgana, I know better than that, I do. I just mean that if my guesses are anywhere in the ballpark, then whenever she teases about getting shot if she tells…”

Gwaine drew out his ‘oh’ of understanding to the point of parody. There was a too-loose quality to his movements that Merlin narrowed his eyes at, something that the half-beer he’d put away already wouldn’t account for. With a solemn nod and a wink, Gwaine pointed at Morgana with the hand still wrapped around the bottle and said, “Gotcher. Not teasing about getting shot. Hush hush.” He flicked his cuffs open at the wrists with a practiced hook of his thumb as he swung knees over the arm of his chair to let his feet dangle. “I certainly don’t want to lose the only one willing to GM me. Where would we be then?” 

“Down one pushy player who tries the GM’s patience just by sitting in the room,” Morgana replied. She flourished Gwaine’s character sheet in his direction. “I hope that wasn’t a rhetorical question.” 

Arthur sat up and stretched. He flicked his dicebag onto the table and said, “You know what’s not rhetorical? _When are we going to start?_ Some of us have day jobs and can’t stay out until the wee hours of the morning.” 

The distraction of Arthur’s torso as he flexed and re-situated himself in his chair shorted out Merlin’s thought-processes. Merlin froze with one hand in his backpack, ostensibly trying to find the metal miniature figurine Will had given him just-in-case once he’d found out that Merlin was playing a half-orc barbarian. Will had painted him. Morgana would want to see. Merlin’s thoughts tried to scrabble onto any train that would carry him away from how Arthur looked in profile.

Arthur, though… 

Merlin hadn’t been this close to Arthur in months (Not counting last week, but last week Arthur had been exhausted and subdued), and Merlin had carefully packed all of his reasons for wanting to be close to Arthur somewhere _away_ out of self-preservation. But here Arthur was, reaching past Merlin with his t-shirt clinging to the curve of his shoulders, his body relaxed. Like nothing was wrong. Like Merlin’s heart wasn’t an ugly bundle of shards held together by wishful thinking and shoddy self-control. There had been a very good reason why Merlin had avoided Arthur just as much as Arthur had avoided him and damn Morgana’s stupid room and Arthur’s stupid apology pizza but he was dangerously maudlin tonight.

Merlin dropped his eyes to his backpack, not quite sure what he was looking for anymore, and concentrated on quelling the flutter of emotion in his chest. Last week Merlin had been able to handle the proximity without nearly as much trouble. Last week wasn’t this week. This week he wasn’t over anything at all.

Morgana’s toes hit his backpack and rattled both the contents and his wits, startling him out of his reverie. Because she was _psychic_ , she flicked her gaze to where Arthur was settling back in his chair again with his feet stretched out in front of him and shook her head. He swallowed the urge to - well, he didn’t know what exactly. Apologize for the last few months. Kiss Arthur. Run from the room. All excellent choices - and gave her a wan smile. She passed him his character sheet. 

“Now. There we go. I don’t care if you are all ready, because you’ve had more than enough time.” Morgana said, catching each of their eyes for a moment. Gwaine saluted her with his beer. “Let’s begin.” 

**

Today on ‘last week on’, to recap, you lot are the Exterminators, of sorts. Your adventuring party, we have learned, consists of Gwaine’s Chastity, a paladin of justice, valor, and honor. Give or take a few virtues, I suppose. There is also Gwen’s Nymeria, a necromancer of some skill who is a little bit too enthusiastic about coming across new dead things. Or old dead things. Or just generally dead things.

Arthur’s got Derezrel, a silly-hat-wearing, poncy elf wizard who is less bookish than Arthur thinks a wizard should be, Lance has a ginger halfling named Maxim, who is both a rogue as well as possibly kinky, and Merlin has Kronk - an absolutely massive half-orc wearing a spiked wig and carrying an ice-skate around on a pole. 

Did I miss anything? No? 

( _Arthur coughed into his hands and raised his eyes at Morgana. He mouthed the word ‘raven’._ )

And Arthur’s got his wizard carrying around a familiar raven named Caliburn. Bird familiars, always rough. I’m sure you’ll be fine, Arthur. 

( _Arthur rolled his eyes._ )

Regardless - last time the five of you had a lovely breakfast of steak at the Sloshed Gazelle, a reputable little tavern-inn-pub place whose innkeep was kind enough to point you in the direction of rat-killing. Despite some dissension in the ranks, you agreed to follow the plot hook to the Spire and Waffle, only to find out that the bait had already been nibbled by some other adventuring party. So very sad. After what was apparently a meteor strike of some sort, you raced back to the Sloshed Gazelle to discover a crater guarded by what turned out to be Kobolds. 

You killed them all and dug out what appeared to be half a tablet that summons something large, evil, and necromantic that - if the ritual is completed and the minor deity they’re trying to summon is let loose - will eat the whole town of Leespire. The tablet, according to spectators, fell from the sky somewhere in the direction of the Spire. So. It’s up to you to supply yourselves and head on out.

Any of you need supplies? 

( _Morgana looked around the room to be met by head shakes of varying confidence._ )

None of you do - which is fine because this is your first run with these characters and I kitted you out to start with - so let’s take you to the Spire.

The crater you’re leaving behind is on one of the main thoroughfares out of the city, and following the road out of town to the east gets you a good ways towards the foot of the Spire. The massive geological feature towers deceptively over the town, and it takes you all about an hour or so to get there. By the time you do, it’s midmorning and approaching noon. The sun is right up overhead and your shadows are shrinking. 

Luckily, you’re not exactly wandering aimlessly out here. While the grassy hills surrounding you are otherwise featureless, your goal is huge and straight ahead, and you arrive at the base of the Spire to find a wide ring of bare dirt surrounding the Spire. The thirty-foot wide ring is empty but for scattered bits of armor and a few melodramatic bones sticking up here and there from the windswept earth. Something flutters - a scrap of fabric that used to be red and is now a dull brown. Here, the beating sun seems somehow hotter. 

The Spire, up close, is an impossible sort of thing. It stretches upwards into the haze and is, perhaps, only about eighty or a hundred feet in diameter. It does not widen appreciably at the base and it tapers only with distance as it towers above you. 

None of the stories you heard in town mention the no-man’s land before you, where other adventurers have died for no obvious reason. Common sense prevents you from stepping out onto suspect dirt. 

So, now you’re at the Spire, about thirty feet from the base, and now what? 

** 

Gwaine, Arthur, and Gwen sat forward in their chairs and looked at each other. 

“Well-” Gwen said slowly, “That’s unexpected. What’s the dirt like?” 

Morgana tapped her pencil on the top of her folder with a repetitive click-click and said, “Like dirt. Brown and red, no obvious corruption. Just devoid of greenery and vermin and anything else that might live in the tall grasses that otherwise surround you.” 

Gwaine hrmed to himself. “Pally power activate? Anything evil within range?” 

“Not evil.” 

Arthur tried his hand next. “Alright, not evil, no obvious corruption beyond the fact that everything is dead. So… handful of grass, tossed in the ring.” 

“Ah, it begins to wither very slowly once it hits the ground,” Morgana said. “It’s not a rapid kill, but it does wither bit by bit as the green leeches out of the blades.” 

**

Nymeria, friendly neighborhood necromancer, squints at the circle and up at the spire. “It’s a sort of lifedrain thing,” she says, “But a slow one. And it’s not evil, so it’s not a curse. In my estimation, it would take around-” 

_(Gwen cut off, rolled her d20, and looked to Morgana. “Fourteen knowledge arcana?”)_

“-roughly three hours to kill us. If we’re not in the ring for more than a couple of minutes, the effects will probably be something like a bit of hair loss. I’m puzzled as to the source, though.” Nymeria looks around at the others for help, eyebrows raised. “If I had to guess, these poor sots probably wandered around until they were too weak to walk away, victims more of their stubborn pride than anything.”

“We hope,” adds Derezrel, somewhat dour for a poncy elf. He crouches down next to the dirt circle and now that Nymeria has declared it at least a tiny bit safe, lets a handful of the stuff filter through his fingers. He squints and, using his wizard skills, says, “Necromancy for sure, but only low-grade necromancy.” Behind him, Nymeria nods in satisfaction - or perhaps confirmation, her eyes flashing a bit lighter purple for half a moment.

It’s Chastity who rocks back on her heels and stares up the Spire. “It’s a barrow.” Silence descends after her announcement, and she shrugs. “I know a thing or two about burying the dead. Religious knowledge and all that. It’s a barrow. Let’s say something or other’s buried in there and, over time, the influence of so many dead things seeps out into its surroundings. Don’t tell me some of those bodies don’t look like they’ve been here for ages and ages.” 

Heads swivel toward one unfortunate fellow whose shield has been reduced to a rotted wooden board, all traces of the painted standard well and truly gone. 

Kronk says, “That means what?” He leans on his greataxe, interested in the proceedings but not quite sure how he’s supposed to contribute during the factfinding stage of things. 

Maxim beats the others to their answers. His voice filters up through the grasses that are taller than his head. “It means we have a way to get to the top. Witnesses pointed out the Spire as where this half-tablet came from and I really don’t want to climb up the outside.”

“And inside is a barrow,” Nymeria finishes, delighted, and fumbles around in her pack for a moment. The result of her search is a slender wooden wand carved with sigils and runes. “Detect Undead!”

The others stare at her. 

“I have a wand of detect undead,” she says. “Don’t look at me like that. It’s a perfectly reasonable thing for a necromancer to have.” 

( _Gwen grinned at them, her cheeks dimpling. “The GM loves me best. That and I emailed Morgana about my character. I obviously I should be able to detect undead, and Morgana likes my level one spells as-is, so_ voila _.”_ )

“How’s it work?” Maxim asks, squinting up at her.

Flustered, Nymeria says, “Oh, well, point and click, really.” She levels the wand at the barrow and speaks the activation word in a low guttural.

Nothing happens. 

Maxim looks disappointed. “That’s it?” 

“There’s a door,” Nymeria says, turning to the rest of the group. Her eyes glow a brilliant white for several seconds before the light fades.

“Detect undead is diviniation, isn’t it?” Derezrel asks. 

Nymeria clutches her wand to her chest, “Don’t even think about stealing.” 

“Can’t very well use it, can I?”

( _Morgana cut in after Arthur’s statement, jabbing her GM pencil in his direction. “It’s possible you can, you’re just not going to be very happy about it.”_ )

“Absolutely not.” Nymeria glowers at the world in general and Derezrel in particular. 

“Door?” Kronk prompts. 

“Oh!” Nymeria tucks her wand away with one last suspicious look around before she answers. “Yes, door. Well- detect undead is blocked by thick enough stone. That thing over there, if it’s hollow, the walls have to at least be thick enough to block the spell if they expect to support the weight of the Spire whether or not magic was involved in its construction. The spell, however, needs more wood to be blocked, and nobody but nobody designs doors more than three feet thick. So, because I can feel a couple of faint undead auras sort of over there-” 

Nymeria points toward the Spire and off to the right.

Everyone speaks at the same time. 

“Hidden door?” Maxim asks. 

“Barrow’s occupied?” Chastity asks. “Great.”

“Who builds a Barrow visible from halfway across the continent?” asks Derezrel.

Kronk, keeping everyone on track with the really important questions, asks, “If it’s already dead, how do I kill it?”

Nymeria answers them all: “I’d be more worried if it wasn’t occupied. Hit it until it stops moving. People who are full of themselves, and yes, hidden door. There’s always a hidden door.” 

“How long until our hair starts to fall out?” Chastity asks, lifting Maxim from his feet and putting him on her shoulders. Maxim flails in surprise, but Chastity’s armoured shoulders are a broad enough platform that Maxim could stand if he wanted to. 

“Ask first next time,” Maxim protests. “I may be half-sized, but I’m not a kid.”

Nymeria says, “Two or three minutes.” 

“Then stick here for two or three minutes and pull us out if it gets hairy or we look like we’re dying,” Chastity says. She takes off across the bare dirt toward the wall of the Spire while Nymeria calls ‘left more!’ and ‘no, no, to your right!’. It takes thirty seconds or so, but Chastity and Maxim line up with where Nymeria says the door is.

( _”Pulling in to Lance and Gwaine on the door, the other three of you let me know if you’re doing anything other than biting your nails while this happens,” Morgana said. She tugged a paper free from her folder. “So-”_ )

There is no door. 

Both Maxim and Chastity lean in toward the wall. It appears to be unworked stone, but the whole Spire seems to be one massive stone and - at least within sight of the two investigators - there do not appear to be any cracks or suspicious divots. Chastity pokes at Spire, but her concentration is somewhat compromised by the odd, itchy and cold feeling that begins to creep into her boots. 

Maxim, however, is having completely rubbish luck. “Are you sure it’s here?” he calls over his shoulder at the rest of the group waiting impatiently outside of the ring. “Because I’m getting nothing.”

“Oh, for Pharasma’s sake,” Nymeria says. She marches forward across the bare earth, hands up, and casts under her breath. The surface of the stone turns purple in a roughly door-shaped rectangle. Hands still out as she holds the simple prestidigitation spell, she says, “It’s right here. Just find the lock.” 

( _Lance winced and rolled. “My dice hate me. Let’s see… four perception plus eleven on the die. Fifteen?” Morgana, amused, finally nodded._ )

With Nymeria’s help on the fantasy equivalent of a big blinking neon sign pointing to _hidden door here_ , Maxim finds the locking mechanism in short order and fumbles out his kit. He looks down at Chastity as if she’s going to be able to help him sort out what to do with the combination of a locked door and a lockpicking kit. 

“Don’t look at me, mate,” Chastity says. “You’re the rogue.” 

Nymeria stands on her tiptoes to whisper in Maxim’s ear where he’s still perched on Chastity’s shoulders and says, “Disable device.”

Maxim, pointed in the right direction, takes approximately three seconds to pop the lock. Nymeria drops her spell and the stone returns to reddish-gray.

At Maxim’s success, Kronk and Derezrel cross the ring to join the rest of their group. “Good idea having a rogue along,” Derezrel announces to the world at large. 

( _”Don’t you start, Arthur. Cleric or no, I know how to design a group and a dungeon for them,” Morgana said, unimpressed. “Think outside your bloody box.”_ )

After a round of back-pats for Maxim, they now have an unlocked door and at least two confirmed undead prowling about inside. The decision becomes to crack open the door and shove Maxim in alone to be sneaky.

The door, now that it is being opened, proves to be a thin layer of stone over solid oak several inches thick. It is a surprise it has stood however-long. Maxim eases the door open as quietly as possible and tiptoes into the room. After a moment to let his eyes adjust to the dark, he discovers several piles of bones that don’t appear to be doing much of anything. He stealths forward a few steps, doesn’t see anything more interesting, and straightens to call back through the door, “Gwen? You said Nymeria found undead in here?” 

“What do you see?” Nymeria asks, shouldering Chastity out of the way and poking her head inside the Spire. The inside smells like wood varnish and wet stone. It’s dark except for a stripe of sunlight cast through the cracked door.

“Piles of bones. A staircase. Flickers of blue light from somewhere above. Nothing undead here, only dead.”

Nymeria makes a small thinking sound. “How many?” 

“How many what?” Maxim asks on his way back to the door. 

“How many piles of bones?” 

“Oh, uh, three?” Maxim says.

“Distinct piles of bones?” At Maxim’s affirmative, Nymeria winces. “Can you, uh, can you sneak right back on out now?” 

Maxim reaches for the skull perched on top of one of the piles. “Why?” 

( _”Roll initiative,” Morgana said with a laugh. “You need to listen to your party.”_ )

The skull Maxim reaches for shudders at his touch, and the whole pile begins to rattle. With no more reason to be stealthy, the rest of the group flings open the door and thunders inside. As they do, the two other piled skeletons rattle as well and clamber to their bony feet. Maxim scrambles back from the warrior skeleton that rises before him, though not before the creature can take a half-formed swipe and draw the first blood of the encounter. 

The three skeletons are humanoid, though beyond that their appearance differs enough for identification. One appears to have vestigial tusks set into its skull, another to have a series of bony ridges down its forehead, and the last to be more heavy-set than an average human. It is the thick-boned human that menaces Maxim, and Chastity wastes no time in interposing herself between him and the creature. 

Nymeria squints at each of the other skeletons in the semi-dark and calls to Kronk, “You take the orc skeleton, I’ll take the Klingon.”

“Are Klingon’s part of… whatever world we’re in?” asks Kronk, but he charges face-first into the hulking skeleton with his greataxe drawn. There’s a crunch and a thud as his axehead connects, but chopping at the creature seems to be somewhat ineffective. 

“No, Klingons are not-” Derezrel says. He raises his hands and stays as far back from the skeletons as possible. A brilliant dart of pure energy zips from his fingertips to splash against the Klingon skeleton that Nymeria approaches. Following him, Nymeria herself wiggles her fingers and and tosses off a casual word and the creature crumbles to dust. 

Nymeria does not halt her forward progress. The ground is rocky and treacherous, full of broken stone and chunks of rotting wood. She marches right over the scattered remains of skeleton, halts at the center of the great round room, and pulls a glowing stone from an inner pocket of her robes. The room illuminates and shadows dance on the far walls as she raises her stone. 

To either side, Kronk has his hands busy trying to keep the orc skeleton from pounding his face in and Chastity is trying to keep Maxim from damage as he pulls out a tiny morningstar and proceeds to blundgeon the heavy-set human skeleton, striking it hard in the hip and throwing it off balance. While Nymeria squints at the ceiling suspiciously, it takes Derezrel’s help to finish off the one skeleton while Kronk finally takes down the other. 

All but Nymeria stand panting and regathering their wits as blood seeps from a few small minor wounds. Nymeria points up at the ceiling with her wand. “There’s at least three more up there, but they’re just sort of wandering around in a big circle. Not very powerful undead, sure, but we might want to be a bit careful about taking them on.” 

“We, Miss Necromancer?” Derezrel says, dusting off his hat and perching it back on top of his head. “You’re the one who fired off a shot and then just stopped to stare at our surroundings. What were you up to while we were all busy?” 

Nymeria gives the others a cheerful grin and gestures at the room they’re in. Now that there’s time to stop and take a look around, the room is a big open space with curving walls the shape of the spire. Inside, it’s more readily apparent just how slender the spire really is. The interior is appreciably smaller than the exterior, the stone a good dozen feet thick, and the inner cylinder is about sixty feet across at best. “This,” she says, “used to be a mass grave.” 

The others have nothing to say to that. Kronk holds up a hand and waits until someone calls on him. At a nod from Nymeria, he asks, “What?” 

“Bottom of the Spire? Easiest access for some value of easy? Mass grave. That’s half the reason why all the necromantic energy is leaking all out the sides.” 

“You’re not just making that up?” Kronk is suspicious and isn’t afraid to admit it. The room, however, now that they’re looking, does have what appear to be rotted out frames and a whole lot of dust that they’ve kicked up during their combat.

Maxim makes a face. “We’re breathing dead people?” 

“Well-” Nymeria says. She wobbles her hand back and forth. “Yes and no? Half of it is probably just wood particulate, and there’s a good amount of stone dust down here for some reason.” 

Rotted and fallen wooden partitions that look like they might have once been walls lay scattered, painted with signs and sigils. There is little to find but decomposing clues as to the previous use of the lower Spire. 

“Do you think-” ventures Maxim as he sits down into the dust next to the orc skeleton, “-that if this is a mass grave here at the bottom of the barrow, that if the whole thing is a barrow…” 

“We’ll be getting into more interesting undead the further up we go?” Nymeria finishes. She’s happy, even if no-one else seems to think that’s good news. 

( _”Nobody in their right mind thinks that ‘more interesting undead’ is good news, Gwen,” Arthur said drily._

_Morgana snorted and directed her words very pointedly toward Gwen. ”You enjoy your character and don’t listen to him.”_ )

“Hey, Gwen, have Nym bring the light over,” Chastity says from where she’s poking about near the stairs that lead along the curve of the wall up to another level. “Here be kobolds.”

Derezrel whips around, hands out, and looks jumpy.

( _Gwen snickered and raised her beer in salute. “Feeling squishy, Arthur? Playing a wizard getting to you already?”_

_”One good backstab and I’m toast,” Arthur said. “Don’t you dare laugh.”_ ) 

“Easy, princess,” Chastity says. With Nymeria’s light-stone held close, the charred bit of wood that she holds up doesn’t resemble anything like an actual kobold. The jagged concave star, when laid flat in in Chastity’s palm, appears more like the remnants of a bowl. “Just saying that it looks like kobolds have the run of the Spire. I’m not all Man-versus-Wild here, but I know a burnt offering when I see it, and I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark, but what bitty bits of spellwork left over from the offering ritual on this thing share an awful lot with that half tablet we found.” 

Nymeria holds her stone aloft again. The skeletons they’ve killed clink and crumble as the magic that held them together slowly dissipates. “There’s nothing here to loot, so I vote we head upstairs, halfling first.” 

Marching order established, they start up the stairs with Maxim in the lead. He peeps his head above floor level and halts. “Not three undead,” he whispers back at the others. Chastity is right behind him, with Nymeria and Derezrel in the center and Kronk still on the first floor. Flickers of blue light play across the wall as they ascend, and Nymeria pockets her stone, plunging them into the dark but for the noon sunlight from the open door. 

“How many?” Chastity asks, holding up her hand to halt the others where they stand.

Maxim flashes three and three and one and Nymeria’s eyes go huge. “Three hundred and thirty one?!” Derezrel clamps a hand over her mouth and the others hush her. Whatever’s up there doesn’t seem to have heard when Maxim checks, though, so he ducks back down and shakes his head. “Three and three and one. Three skeletons of some sort, three spooky dripping ghost things, and one floating skull. On fire. Blue fire.” 

“Explains the blue,” Kronk says from the bottom of the stone steps, not particularly concerned with whispering. 

Nymeria tugs Derezrel’s hand from her mouth and says, “We need a plan, or they’re going to come at us all at once.” 

Maxim and Derezrel share a look. “Chokepoint,” Derezrel says. “Basic numbers game. Use the stairs, it’s only wide enough for one of the beasties to get to us at a time, and set Chastity up front. Swap her out for Kronk if it gets hairy, and the rest of us shoot zappy things past their heads.” 

Maxim nods in agreement. “I’m not the only one who notices that throwing me on the other side of whatever we’re attacking so I can flank will get me dead in a hurry?” 

“As much as I want you somewhere dealing out the miracle that is Pathfinder’s sneak attack damage against undead,” Derezrel says. “I want you to hang back, just in case, and try to figure out something clever.” 

“Those are my combat instructions?” Maxim raises his eyebrows, incredulous.

“Work with me, Lance,” Derezrel says. “We’re, like, level one.” 

“Clever?” Maxim repeats. 

( _Lance frowned down at his character sheet. “I can do anything, right?”_ )

The plan is quickly hashed out and Maxim’s grappling hook is secured to the floor above. With the railing long since rotted away, the steps have a wall on one side and a sheer drop to the floor on the other. Maxim’s rope hangs off the edge of the stairway. 

When at last everyone’s in place, Nymeria prods Derezrel to get the attention of the undead. He sounds out the others for the go-ahead. 

Maxim hops on the rope hanging next to the stairs and tucks his foot into a loop. “Rope swing ready. Fire away.” 

With a long, low sound like a firework whistling up into the air, Derezrel fires off a spell that zips up the stairs. A beat later, the second floor room above fills with brilliant light. It flicks out after a moment, leaving only afterimages and the sound of rattling bones coming their way. 

The plan to make the stairway a chokepoint works for the first skeleton. Chastity meets the creature’s spear lunge with a laugh as the spearhead rings from her chestplate. 

The moment the second skeleton and the first floating, dripping ghost arrives, however, everything goes to shit. 

Nymeria’s eyes widen in the middle of casting a spell to disrupt undead energies. “That’s not a floaty, drippy ghostie,” she says the instant it comes into view. “That’s an ectoplasmic… something.” 

“So precise-” Chastity snips back at her as she jabs the butt of her sword-grip into the skeleton’s face. “That means what?” 

“That means,” Nymeria says, dipping in place so Derezrel can loose another volley over her head. “Shit, um, shortversion. Tortured soul so they’re not quite as mindless, nasty ooze from the Etherial Plane, um, filled with burning hate, either died in the vicinity or some asshole put them here, and-” 

The ectoplasm creature takes one look at the stareway and decides it’s not worth it. It takes a long, slow step through the ceiling next to the stairway and floats into view level with Maxim on his rope swing. 

“-and they can walk through walls,” Nymeria finishes. 

“So much for the chokepoint,” Derezrel says. “Merlin, the bardiche has reach. Take Kronk down and play pinata. Don’t hit the halfling.” Kronk hops off the stairs from about halfway up the wall and switches weapons to take a swipe at the creature. It’s a wild swing and Kronk hits a whole lot of nothing.

“There are three of those things.” Nymeria reaches out to steady Maxim when he ducks away from the ectoplasm creature’s first swipe and the rope swings a great deal wider than he anticipates. “Take out the skellies.” 

“Where’s the floaty blue skull?” asks Chastity. Her sword swing lands solidly on the skeleton at the top of the stairs. It falters and collapses and provides a brand new tripping hazard as the bones cascade down the steps. 

With great dignity, the flaming blue skull passes over the group on the stair’s heads and settles down at the back behind Derezrel. Whipping around, Derezrel’s fingers light up with a crackle of blue-white energy and he makes a grab for the menace. His fingers close on nothing, the skull dodging at the last moment, flesh sloughing off to fall with a wet noise and a flicker of guttering blue flame. 

Derezrel tries to step back out of range, but ‘back’ is Nymeria, ‘left’ is the wall, and ‘right’ is a ten-foot drop that would let the skull have a chance to attack him anyhow. “Change of plan! Have Kronk get the skull!” 

Leaving Maxim on the rope swing to deal with the second ectoplasm creature that joins the first, Kronk thunders up the stairs and swings his bardiche hard. 

**

Merlin rolled his attack. “Twenty on the dice?” he asked, looking up at Morgana. “Will told me to keep track of twenties on the dice.”

“Threaten critical,” Arthur said. He leaned over the arm of the chair and into Merlin’s space. “Roll again, pretend like you’re attacking, and then tell us what the result is.” The expression he turned on Merlin was a mixture of boyish enthusiasm and raw charm, and Merlin couldn’t help but grin back at him. Words came out of Arthur’s mouth, his lips moving, distracting, and it took Merlin a few seconds to parse what he was saying. “You hit for sure, we just need to see if you knock the thing silly.” 

As instructed, Merlin peeled his thoughts away from how close Aurthur was leaning, rolled and gave basic addition a go.

The result - a solid seventeen - made Morgana grin. She dipped her head in confirmation. “You, my dear, have had your very first critical hit. Damage times two for your bardiche.” 

Gwaine whooped from across the table, a little bit loud for how close he was sitting to the rest of them. 

“Thank you for your enthusiasm,” Morgana said as she wiggled her pinky into her ear as if he had deafened her. “I’m sure Merlin’s very proud of his dice.” 

“Will’s dice,” Merlin corrected. His d10 felt like being nice and rolled max damage. “Uh, damage, sixteen, double, thirty-two?” 

Morgana drew a line through something in her folder and smiled up at him. “Thing never stood a chance.” 

“I have six hitpoints,” Arthur reminded him. “Six. You just killed me twice over. More than.”

“But I wasn’t hitting you?” Merlin said, “I hit the flamey blue skull.” 

“Which is good,” Morgana said with a reassuring smile. “Arthur was next up, and this thing does fire damage. Did fire damage.” Her nails flashed as she drummed them on the arm of her chair. “Still two skeletons and two ectoplasmic beasties.” 

“Oh, I got the first ectoplasm?” Gwen asked. “I didn’t catch that.” 

“Merlin crit before I could give you your result.” Morgana stretched in her chair. “Anyone want any more pizza? You’ve a bit of combat left and then some poking around, but we’ve been sitting for a while.” 

Gwaine pulled of his chair and wobbled on his feet. “Pizza for me. Was a long day, let me tell you.” He headed off for the kitchen with enough waver in his step that Merlin glanced at Arthur for explanation. 

Arthur shrugged, a gesture directed at the group as a whole. The others were looking to him for answers as well. “Bet you money that that’s not beer,” Arthur said, dipping his chin in the direction of the beer-bottle in front of Gwaine’s spot. “At least, not any more. He always carries a flask.” 

“News to me,” Lance said. He shifted on the sette to stare over the back toward the kitchen. Gwen leaned against his legs and finished off the last of her beer, conspicuously silent. Lance raised an eyebrow at her that she couldn’t see and asked, “Has he always done that?” 

“Long as I’ve known him.” Arthur followed Lance’s gaze. “Anyone want something to drink besides beer?” 

A chorus of ‘yes’ from everyone except Arthur prompted him up out of his chair and toward the kitchen. “You can all stay there, I’ll get Gwaine to help.” 

With Arthur gone as well, the rest of them stretched out. Gwen kicked her feet up over the arm of the sette and tipped her head toward Merlin. “So, what do you think?” 

“I think I’ve not seen Arthur as… relaxed in ages.” Merlin picked up a handful of his dice and rattled it around in his hand. “If relaxed is the right word.” 

“It’s a word, that’s for sure,” Gwen said with a bob of her head. “He’s pleased, I think. Plans and counter-plans, and Morgana knows how to give him a puzzle.” 

“You flatter me,” Morgana said, but she was smiling. 

“He just- there’s something orderly about this sort of combat, and it’s the kind of thing that someone like him, or someone like me, who has been doing it for ages and ages just finds comforting.” Gwen offered him a sweet smile. “The last time I was in a game with Arthur, he played a fighter, just a straight-up ‘hit things a lot until they die’ sort of character. He wasn’t a fancy character, and he didn’t even take a prestige class, so he stayed just a basic fighter, but one time-” 

Morgana interrupted Gwen. “Gaming stories?” 

“Who else is going to tell them?” Gwen asked. “The others who actually have gaming stories are elsewhere. Merlin and Lance don’t know what they’re in for.”

With a laugh, Morgana just waved a hand at Gwen to continue. 

Gwen nudged Lance’s legs out from behind her and resettled herself. “Anyway, Arthur is playing this fighter, Arcturus, and we’re nigh on epic levels and in the belly of this labyrinth and we’ve long since lost our string telling us how to get back out again. I’m running on empty, no heals left to my name, and half the party is walking wounded, barely limping along. We’re trying to find somewhere safe to sleep, because we need it, desperately, and a dragon prances up and starts taking swipes. Arthur doesn’t hesitate, he just says ‘prepare true rez tomorrow’, and flings himself out of hiding.

“I’m left standing there shouting ‘where am I supposed to get a diamond big enough to bring your ass back from the dead?’ and trying to figure out where to shove the rest of the party so as not to get eaten, and Arthur is bound and determined to test the limits of the swallowed whole mechanics.” Gwen shook her head, “It’s… well, it was actually kind of hilarious. This dragon is all prepared to bite-”

Movement from the kitchen was the only warning that Merlin had before Arthur leaned over his shoulder and spoke into his ear. “Best death any of my characters ever had,” Arthur said, picking up the story from Gwen as she accepted her glass from him. “You telling him about Arcturus?”

Merlin cradled the glass of water Arthur handed him and nodded, trying to will his heartbeat to calm. “Eaten by a dragon?” 

“Not just any dragon,” Arthur said. The glasses Gwaine brought out found their ways to Lance and Morgana. “A big fuckoff huge red dragon with a nasty temper and not a small bit of pissed off because of the last time we tried to take him down. Bedivere’s character’s a sorcerer and at the last minute he shouts ‘catch’ and lobs something at me. I manage to snag it, it’s a chilly ball of ice the size of a marble, and I slip-and-slide my way down a surprised dragon’s throat.” 

“Delayed fireball,” Gwen said. “The spell that Arthur took with him. Nobody wants Arcturus to just straight-up die, of course, because even if I did prep true rez, there’s no telling when we’d scrape up enough gold for the materials. Nineteen straight levels is over two years of running with the same crew, and if Arthur has to reroll, losing Arcturus would be like losing a limb, so as he’s running forward, everyone just lobs everything that does any damage at all at the bloody big lizard. One of us even crits, but it’s still a nightmare. The thing is sucking breath, preparing to breathe ridiculous mounts of fire at us that we barely survived the last time, and we have no way of knowing if we’ve even made a dent in the thing’s hitpoints. Probably not, because this thing is huge.”

Arthur lifted his beer. “Now, I’d been just trying to distract the thing while everyone ran, because that was the sensible thing to do.”

“Don’t you even,” Gwen warned. “Since when does any group of ours do the sensible thing?” 

“I held out hope for just once.” 

Gwen snorted lightly. “I hope it was a faint, realistic hope.” 

As an aside to Merlin, Arthur said, “I thought they’d run. It was supposed to be a noble sacrifice.” 

With a roll of her eyes, Gwen continued, “So Arthur hits this thing’s open jaws on its inhale and the dragon starts choking, because hello - what kind of crazy is it to jump in, right? We’re all relieved that there’s significantly less burning happening, shoot a couple more arrows into it’s face while it’s trying to either spit out or swallow Arcturus. Arcturus, though, he’s getting ground up, hitpoints dropping like a rock and he was already wounded when we went in.” 

Arthur held up a hand to stop Gwen. “Except I was carrying this delayed fireball that Bedivere had converted to do cold damage instead, and fire dragons hate the cold.” He grinned. “After the delay, the iceball blew up inside the thing’s throat, killed me twice over again. But it slammed through spell resistance, half of the damage dice maxed out, and add onto that a red dragon’s vulnerability to cold. With the crits and throwing everything everyone had left, it was just barely enough, but it was enough.

“This stupid dragon that we couldn’t manage to kill before died in two rounds. Pop. Just like that. It was fucking brilliant,” Arthur finished. “Best death any of my characters ever had.” 

Gwen twisted in her seat and put her chin on Lance’s knees. “See what you’ve been missing? That kind of amazingness. It’s addictive after a while.” Lance shrugged, but a small smile played across his lips. 

Merlin blinked at Arthur and Gwen by turns. “But then what happened?” 

Pausing, Arthur raised his eyebrows. “What do you mean ‘then what happened’?” 

“Did Arcturus get un-deaded?” 

“Oh,” said Arthur, nonplussed, “Yes.”

“Yes, yes he did,” Gwen said, “I made sure of that. It just took us another session or two to con someone into letting us have the right mats, but we got him back. The game only went on a couple more months after that, though. We hit level twenty and real life slammed everyone right into the ground. Group dissolved. That was years ago, though.” 

Lance leaned over the arm of his chair toward Gwaine and indicated his beer bottle. “Any chance of having what you’re having?” 

“How do you feel about straight whiskey?” Gwaine said, producing a a flask from who-knows-where and passing it over. His gaze flicked to Arthur briefly.

The rapid tap of a pencil brought the everyone’s attention back to Morgana. “We do still have a handful of menacing undead for your current characters to fight, if you want. Not that they can really compete with a great red wyrm, but they do their best.” 

Arthur checked his watch. “We should probably finish up, fussing around with the lower room ate up more time than I thought it would.” 

“So glad you approve,” Morgana told him. “Now, to pick back up where we left off, Merlin’s crit bites right into the fleshy bits still stuck on the floating skull and knocks it straight to the steps. It bounces-” 

**

The skull, now inert, bounces down the steps and off into a pool of darkness, but there are still a handful of enemies left. Maxim, dangling on his rope to the side, slashes with his dagger at the ectoplasm floating mid-air and trying to murder him where he swings. The creature retaliates with one goopy tendril that may be an attempt to give the thing arms and the attack hits Maxim square in the face. He shudders, the effect of the attack more than simple damage, and his next attack is almost tentative. 

Chastity, up on the stairs, works methodically to hack down the skeletons trying to get past her. There is a long drag of seconds, with wizard and necromancer trying to focus on one of the undead for long enough for it to fall before moving onto the next. 

The third ectoplasm drops from the ceiling a moment after its fellow dies a messy death, goo raining down on Kronk where he stand trying to flail upward at his target. For all that the whole group had minor wounds and scrapes, they manage to avoid all but Chastity and Maxim from taking too much damage until, at last, the final skeleton falls. 

The sound of combat is replaced by the heavy breathing of the victorious combatants and the steady drip-drip of water from somewhere above. The flickers of blue fire are long gone, and the steady light of Nymeria’s stone illuminates the staircase in stark lines and shadows. After a moment, Nymeria asks, “Loot the room?”

The creatures themselves aren’t carrying much, dead and restless as they are, but a damp, innocuous chest in the corner of the upper room proves to hold some small treasures. There’s a handful of silver for each of them, a pair of small bottles that look enough like the ones they already have that Maxim and Chastity both receive one to heal some of their wounds. After downing his, Maxim looks appreciably better.

Kronk picks up the skull that had tried to go after Derezrel and examines it. The thing has splotch of bright red in the center of the forehead about the size of quarter. Leaving a gap of about an inch, a slender line encircles the dot. The red cuts across the top of the cranial case, loops down along the cheekbone, skips the blackened hole where the nose would be, and travels back up the other cheekbone. It’s distinctive, to say the least, and the fact that the skull’s orbital sockets are lined with gold doesn’t hurt.

“An objet d’art,” Nymeria declares it before tucking it hurriedly into her satchel. “We can sell it when we get back to down. I’ve a few collectors of the macabre that would pay good money for genuine decorative former-undead, especially if it came with my assurances.” 

“I can’t tell if it’s magic,” Derezrel complains. “I’m a wizard, I should be able to tell if it’s magic. If I examine it, could I?” 

Nymeria raises her eyebrows and clutches her satchel protectively. “I’m not going to let you examine it.”

“I’m not going to break it.” Derezrel holds out his hands in exasperation. “Come on.” 

“You might.”

Eyes narrowing, Derezrel gives Nymeria good look up and down. He’s not the one who knew her to begin with, after all. “It could be important. What are you hiding?” 

“I’m not hiding anything,” Nymeria says a bit too quickly. 

“Then hand it over.” 

“Hey-” Chastity broke in. The healing potion she’d chugged has done a little, but not nearly enough to make more than a dent in her wounds. She looks a bit ragged. “Is it just me or is it getting wetter?” The drip of distant water reinforces her words.

Now that they’re on the second level, ranged around the chest, water trickles past their boots through grooves barely visible in the limited light of Nymeria’s stone. 

“That can’t be good,” Maxim says. “Was it doing that before?”

**

 

“That’s where we’re going to stop tonight,” Morgana said. “Arthur, what’d you roll?”

“A thirteen perception to tell me whether or not it was this wet while we were fighting or whether it’s a new thing.” Arthur scooped up his dice.

“And I’m going to leave that question for next week.” The yawn Morgana gave as she stretched up and out of her chair set off a chain reaction. Merlin smothered his own yawn with his fist. “Combat’s still somewhat slow. That was technically a single encounter that I split into two and it still took us three hours. After the day I’ve had, I’m done.”

“We’ll get more efficient.” Arthur rolled his shoulders in a lazy shrug. 

Morgana gathered the beer bottles - including Gwaine’s, despite his protests. “I know you will. I’m just saying that that’s more than enough of an adventure for tonight. You’ve got a couple of mysteries to deal with for next time. Gwaine, are you-?”

“Sober enough to go anywhere?” Gwaine finished for her. His diction was crisp with minimal slurring, but he made a face and wobbled his hand back and forth. “I wouldn’t say no to an alternative.” 

“You’re staying on my couch, you lush.” 

Gwaine kicked his legs up over the arm of his chair and grinned. “Do I have a choice?” 

“No.” Morgana took a whiff of the stuff Gwaine had been refilling his bottle with and made a face. “Definitely not.”

Gwen asked, “Is everything okay, really?” 

The quiet sincerity in Gwen’s question caught Merlin’s attention. Not the only one worried, at Merlin’s side Arthur shifted in his chair and Morgana growned at Gwen with an expression more than three parts irritation. Morgana shifted from foot to foot and her armful of bottles clinked.

With all eyes on him, Gwaine hesitated for long enough that Merlin didn’t believe it for a moment when he finally said yes.

Lance and Gwen traded looks from where Gwen was curled up against his legs. She ventured, “Do you want to talk about it?” 

“Hey, look at the time. I should be in the kitchen drinking water to stave off my inevitable hangover right about now.” Gwaine sounded so much his usual self, all brash confidence, that it was almost enough for a proper misdirection. He shoved himself to his feet and tried to dodge past the sette and its occupants, but Lance put out a hand and halted him before he went more than a step. 

“Is it really nothing?” Lance asked, his fingers light on Gwaine’s pantleg.

Gwaine shot his usual smile at Lance, then tilted his chin up to shine it around at the whole group. “For now, yeah. Nothing. Maybe later it’ll be something.” 

“Alright then.” Lance released him. Gwaine disappeared into the kitchen. The sound of the tap drifted out a handful of seconds later.

“That’s not good,” Gwen said. “You can’t tell me that was good.”

Morgana, standing at the edge of the cluster of her guests with her armful of bottles, shook her head. “No, it wasn’t.” 

Arthur started to tidy the gaming table, his movements abrupt as he leaned forward to stack the books. The clear, neutral expression on Arthur’s face gave nothing away and he kept his eyes carefully off the kitchen.

“You’re going to talk to him?” Gwen pried herself up off the sette and onto her feet. She reached a hand back to help Lance up. 

“I am,” Morgana lingered, her head cocked to the side so she could listen. “But for tonight I’m just going to let him sleep it off. He doesn’t need me prying into his affairs any more than I need him prying into mine. A lesson for the rest of you, if I’m not mistaken.” 

Gwen held up her hands in innocence. “I won’t touch it, then. I’ll change the subject to Lance and Merlin. Lance. Merlin. How was game for you tonight?”

Lance wrapped his arm around Gwen’s shoulders from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder. “I got down to one hit point. Is that supposed to happen often?” 

“One?” Gwen half-turned in Lance’s hold. “How’d I miss that?” 

“No healer,” Morgana said. “Makes a difference.” She started toward the kitchen. 

“You almost died,” Gwen exclaimed. She turned in placed and put a hand on either side of Lance’s face. “Tell someone when you’re about to be finished off and we’ll try and help you. Just because you’re still functional at one hit point doesn’t mean we want you there for long.” 

Lance chuckled and planted a kiss on her nose. “Duly noted.” 

Wrapped up in each-other, the pair moved toward the kitchen and left Merlin alone with Arthur. Voices and laughter drifted from the other room, but neither of them moved to stand. 

The neutral expression on Arthur’s face softened. Merlin leaned in, “You know what’s going on with Gwaine, don’t you?” 

Arthur startled and dropped his dice bag to the floor with a clatter. A moment later, he laughed to himself and scrubbed his hands down his face. “I forgot that you’d need to ask.” He waved _that_ comment away and said, “Whatever it is is Gwaine’s business.” 

“That’s not a no.” 

“I can’t give you a yes,” Arthur said. 

Merlin’s heart sank - not because of Gwaine, but because of Arthur’s unintentional echo of words he’d already used with Merlin. “I know,” he said. Pursing the topic to to find out what was wrong with Gwaine seemed suddenly harder than before. “I should go.” 

The chair creaked and Arthur shifted to face him. “Come with me to lunch this weekend.” 

The question out of the blue threw Merlin off balance. He halted packing up and stared at Arthur. “You’re serious?” 

“Absolutely. I’ve got a thank-you lunch with some of the other teachers from the school. One of the student’s parents is hosting.” 

Merlin relaxed and loosened his grip on his bag so that the buckles weren’t digging into his palms. “I’m moral support, is it?” 

“You’re something, all right.” Arthur tipped his chin up and looked down his nose. “You’ll do, though.” 

“You’re too kind.” 

“Always am. The hosts are posh, so dress nice.” 

“I didn’t agree to go yet.” 

“But you’re going to.” 

Merlin’s tried not to smile and failed, “Of course I am. I have to keep you from stealing the silver.” 

“Rude. I would never.” 

“I dunno, Morgana’s the only one here with the kind of job that keeps her in the life to which she has become accustomed.” Merlin made a show of looking around the flat, with its glittery chandeliers and chic modern furniture. “You can’t compete with this, I’m afraid.” 

“You don’t think I can provide for you?” Arthur’s eyebrows shot up. “Excuse you, I cut my teeth on quarterly earning reports.” 

Merlin choked on his own tongue and it took him a couple of tries to find his words. He was willing to start over, though, he was, and starting over meant getting used to the ridiculous way Arthur slipped innuendo into their conversation on the assumption that Merlin was in on the joke. 

Now, without the tiny lurch of hope his heart used to give, Merlin had nothing to hide. It was almost a relief to have an answer to the ‘what-if’ question. 

Almost.

Teasing back, Merlin tried to soften his tone, but it still came out harder than he’d intended. “That’d be a trick. Somehow I don’t see Uther saying ‘my kid ate my presentation.’” 

“Oi, low blow. Don’t bring my father into this.” 

“You’re the one kipping silver from our posh hosts.”

“I’m not going to do anything with anyone’s silver, _Mer_ lin. That’s an utter fabrication and I shan’t listen to you any longer.” 

“Oh, I struck a nerve, didn’t I?” 

Morgana, at the entrance to the kitchen, let out her breath in a loud, exasperated huff to let them know she was there. “For the love of- stop flirting and get out of my house, both of you. Get.” 

Laughing, Arthur found his feet and offered a hand to help Merlin out of his chair. Merlin couldn’t help but hesitate to grab hold, but Arthur was offering and Merlin was starting over. He clasped Arthur’s hand and was yanked to his feet. As he caught his balance and surreptitiously wiped his hand off on his trousers, he caught Morgana’s eye over Arthur’s shoulder. He shrugged at the query in her gaze. She shook her head slowly, disapproval written all over her expression. 

‘Not my fault,’ Merlin mouthed at her and her frown grew more severe. 

Ten minutes later, after the evening’s farewells, Merlin stood on the pavement on the street outside of Morgana’s flat looking up at the lit window. He could start over. He _could_. It was going to take some doing, but if the original confession had taught him anything - he could do things a whole lot harder and survive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ethical Sadism is designed as a serial, which is an experimental style for me. The goal is once every month or so to put out another session of this fic. 
> 
> If you have questions about the gaming aspects of the fic, or just ideas of what you might want to see, feel free to leave a comment. Or, just say hello in the comment section! This whole thing is very much an experiment and I'm running off of only one other example of a successful internet serial. :) 
> 
> I'm keeping both an livejournal and a tumblr for my fic and fic-related things, so feel free to follow me at either [Desiderii-fic on tumblr](http://desiderii-fic.tumblr.com/) or [Desiderii on Lj](http://desiderii.livejournal.com).


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